What should be added to C : if (a=b)

[David Keppel]

< munchies! >

    [ discription of problem "'if (a=b)' when I wanted 'if (a==b)'" ]

    How about an option to lint(1) (this doesn't help the people who
    don't have lint) that looks for conditional clauses with assignment
    but no test.  Thus

	if ( (a = expr) == value ) { ...
    
    would pass cleanly thru lint, while

	if ( a = expr ) { ...
    
    would generate a message indicating a potential problem.  There
    could be a "lint comment" /* BOOLTESTED */ or some such:

	if ( a = expr ) { 			/* BOOLTESTED */
    
    that would also serve as documentation to say to another reader of
    the code "Yes, I really meant '=' and not '=='".
----
    David Keppel				..!ucbvax!pavepaws!keppel
	      "Gospel in, Gospel out: Learning by Osmosis"