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Suggesting that there can be 62 seconds in a minute?
Suggesting that there can be 62 seconds in a minute? Q: Why can tm_sec in the tm structure range from 0 to 61, suggesting that there can be 62 seconds in a minute? A: That's actually a buglet in the Standard. There can be 61 seconds in a minute during a leap second. It's possible for there to be two...
2015-01-05, 1605👍, 0💬

Is C a great language, or what?
Is C a great language, or what? Where else could you write something like a+++++b ? A: Well, you can't meaningfully write it in C, either. The rule for lexical analysis is that at each point during a straightforward left-to-right scan, the longest possible token is determined, without regard to whet...
2015-01-26, 1603👍, 0💬

How can I clear the screen? How can I print text in color? How can I move the cursor to a specific x, y position?
How can I clear the screen? How can I print text in color? How can I move the cursor to a specific x, y position? Such things depend on the terminal type (or display) you're using. You will have to use a library such as termcap, terminfo, or curses, or some system-specific routines, to perform these...
2015-04-27, 1602👍, 0💬

Is it acceptable for one header file to #include another?
Is it acceptable for one header file to #include another? It's a question of style, and thus receives considerable debate. Many people believe that ``nested #include files'' are to be avoided: the prestigious Indian Hill Style Guide disparages them; they can make it harder to find relevant definitio...
2016-02-16, 1599👍, 0💬

What do Segmentation violation, `Bus error, and General protection fault mean? What is a core dump?
What do Segmentation violation, `Bus error, and General protection fault mean? What is a core dump? These symptoms (and any similar messages having to do with memory access violations or protection faults) generally mean that your program tried to access memory it shouldn't have, invariably as a res...
2015-05-20, 1598👍, 0💬

Are the outer parentheses in return statements really optional?
Are the outer parentheses in return statements really optional? Yes. Long ago, in the early days of C, they were required, and just enough people learned C then, and wrote code which is still in circulation, that the notion that they might still be required is widespread. (As it happens, parentheses...
2015-02-02, 1597👍, 0💬

What are the complete rules for header file searching?
What are the complete rules for header file searching? The exact behavior is implementation-defined (which means that it is supposed to be documented; Typically, headers named with &lt;> syntax are searched for in one or more standard places. Header files named with "" syntax are first searched ...
2016-02-12, 1596👍, 0💬

Why does everyone say not to use scanf? What should I use instead?
Why does everyone say not to use scanf? What should I use instead? scanf has a number of problems, its %s format has the same problem that gets() has --it's hard to guarantee that the receiving buffer won't overflow. More generally, scanf is designed for relatively structured, formatted input (its n...
2015-10-21, 1596👍, 0💬

I am splitting up a program into multiple source files for the first time ...
I'm splitting up a program into multiple source files for the first time, and I'm wondering what to put in .c files and what to put in .h files. (What does ``.h'' mean, anyway?) As a general rule, you should put these things in header (.h) files: macro definitions (preprocessor #defines) structure, ...
2016-02-18, 1595👍, 0💬

Can I use base-2 constants (something like 0b101010)? Is there a printf format for binary?
Can I use base-2 constants (something like 0b101010)? Is there a printf format for binary? No, on both counts, although there are various preprocessor tricks you can try. You can convert base-2 string representations to integers with strtol. If you need to print numbers out in base 2, .
2015-02-13, 1595👍, 0💬

Does C have circular shift operators?
Does C have circular shift operators? No. (Part of the reason why is that the sizes of C's types aren't precisely defined----but a circular shift makes most sense when applied to a word of a particular known size.) You can implement a circular shift using two regular shifts and a bitwise OR: (x &...
2015-01-28, 1595👍, 0💬

I inherited some code which contains far too many ...
I inherited some code which contains far too many #ifdef's for my taste. How can I preprocess the code to leave only one conditional compilation set, without running it through the preprocessor and expanding all of the #include's and #define's as well? There are programs floating around called unifd...
2016-01-29, 1594👍, 0💬

I a'm getting strange syntax errors inside lines I have ifdeffed out.
I a'm getting strange syntax errors inside lines I have ifdeffed out. Under ANSI C, the text inside a ``turned off'' #if, #ifdef, or #ifndef must still consist of ``valid preprocessing tokens.'' This means that the characters " and ' must each be paired just as in real C code, and the pairs mustn't ...
2016-01-29, 1593👍, 0💬

People keep saying that the behavior of ...
People keep saying that the behavior of i = i++ is undefined, but I just tried it on an ANSI-conforming compiler, and got the results I expected. A compiler may do anything it likes when faced with undefined behavior (and, within limits, with implementation-defined and unspecified behavior), includi...
2015-11-18, 1593👍, 0💬

Can you mix old-style and new-style function syntax?
Can you mix old-style and new-style function syntax? Doing so is legal (and can be useful for backwards compatibility), but requires a certain amount of care . Modern practice, however, is to use the prototyped form in both declarations and definitions. (The old-style syntax is marked as obsolescent...
2016-01-13, 1592👍, 0💬

How can I write a function which takes a variable number of arguments
How can I write a function which takes a variable number of arguments and passes them to some other function (which takes a variable number of arguments)? In general, you cannot. Ideally, you should provide a version of that other function which accepts a va_list pointer. Suppose you want to write a...
2015-06-05, 1590👍, 0💬

How can I call system when parameters (filenames, etc.) of the executed command arent known until run time?
How can I call system when parameters (filenames, etc.) of the executed command arent known until run time? Just use sprintf (or perhaps strcpy and strcat) to build the command string in a buffer, then call system with that buffer. (Make sure the buffer is allocated with enough space; Here is a cont...
2015-03-18, 1587👍, 0💬

I am reading strings typed by the user into an array ...
I'm reading strings typed by the user into an array, and then printing them out later. When the user types a sequence like \n, why isn't it being handled properly? Character sequences like \n are interpreted at compile time. When a backslash and an adjacent n appear in a character constant or string...
2016-03-04, 1586👍, 0💬

I am still getting errors due to library functions being undefined
I'm still getting errors due to library functions being undefined, even though I'm explicitly requesting the right libraries while linking. Many linkers make one pass over the list of object files and libraries you specify, and extract from libraries only those modules which satisfy references which...
2015-07-14, 1585👍, 0💬

This program runs perfectly on one machine ...
This program runs perfectly on one machine, but I get weird results on another. Stranger still, adding or removing a debugging printout changes the symptoms... Lots of things could be going wrong; here are a few of the more common things to check: * uninitialized local variables integer overflow, es...
2015-05-27, 1585👍, 0💬

I have some old code that tries to construct identifiers with a macro like ...
I have some old code that tries to construct identifiers with a macro like #define Paste(a, b) a/**/b but it doesn't work any more. It was an undocumented feature of some early preprocessor implementations (notably Reiser's) that comments disappeared entirely and could therefore be used for token pa...
2016-01-27, 1583👍, 0💬

I need some code to do regular expression and wildcard matching.
I need some code to do regular expression and wildcard matching. Make sure you recognize the difference between: * Classic regular expressions, variants of which are used in such Unix utilities as ed and grep. In regular expressions, a dot . usually matches any single character, and the sequence .* ...
2015-08-12, 1583👍, 0💬

How can I generate floating-point random numbers?
How can I generate floating-point random numbers? drand48 is a Unix System V routine which returns floating point random numbers (presumably with 48 bits of precision) in the half-open interval [0, 1). (Its companion seed routine is srand48; neither is in the C Standard.) It's easy to write a low-pr...
2015-07-22, 1582👍, 0💬

What is the right way to use errno?
What is the right way to use errno? In general, you should detect errors by checking return values, and use errno only to distinguish among the various causes of an error, such as ``File not found'' or ``Permission denied''. (Typically, you use perror or strerror to print these discriminating error ...
2015-02-23, 1582👍, 0💬

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