() ignored in some expressions
Benjamin Zhu
zhu at crabcake.cs.jhu.edu
Fri Apr 13 15:35:11 AEST 1990
In article <41297 at ism780c.isc.com> marv at ism780.UUCP (Marvin Rubenstein) writes:
>In article <1272 at sdrc.UUCP> scjones at sdrc.UUCP (Larry Jones) writes:
>>In article <48079 at lanl.gov>, u096000 at lanl.gov (Roger A. Cole) writes:
>>> In K&R1, expressions involving one of the associative and commutative
>>> operators can be arranged even when parenthesized.
>>
>>Well, if the operators ARE commutative and associative, it
>>doesn't make any difference! In the environment the C grew up
>>in, integer arithmetic overflows wrap around without producing
>>any exceptions, so the integer operators really are associative
>>and commutative.
>
>A common misconception. Integer operators are associaive for add and
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>subtract but not for multiply and divide. for example:
^^^^^^^^
Oh, really? How about 1-2+3-4, 1-(2+3)-4, ...
Well, you can enumerate all of the combinations. Are the results all 0?
I am confused.
Strictly speaking, the integer operations are associative only if a single
operator is involved. Otherwise, you could never tell.
Sigh, algebra is still useful.
>
> long x=70000;
> x*(x/x); /* 700000 if parens are honored */
> (x*x)/x; /* 8643 if parens are honered */
>
>The above assumes longs are 32 bits.
>
> Marv Rubinstein
Benjamin Zhu
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Sorry, but I have no disclaimer for you this time.
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