<< < 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 > >>   Sort: Date

How can I add N days to a date? How can I find the difference between two dates?
How can I add N days to a date? How can I find the difference between two dates? The ANSI/ISO Standard C mktime and difftime functions provide some (limited) support for both problems. mktime accepts non-normalized dates, so it is straightforward to take a filled-in struct tm, add or subtract from t...
2015-08-05, 1691👍, 0💬

How can I invoke another program or command and trap its output?
How can I invoke another program or command and trap its output? Unix and some other systems provide a popen function, which sets up a stdio stream on a pipe connected to the process running a command, so that the calling program can read the output (or alternatively supply the input). Using popen, ...
2015-03-16, 1691👍, 0💬

I have been replacing multiplications and divisions with shift operators, because shifting is more efficient.
I have been replacing multiplications and divisions with shift operators, because shifting is more efficient. This is an excellent example of a potentially risky and usually unnecessary optimization. Any compiler worthy of the name can replace a constant, power-of-two multiplication with a left shif...
2015-02-09, 1691👍, 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, 1689👍, 0💬

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, 1689👍, 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, 1687👍, 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, 1687👍, 0💬

I am having trouble with a Turbo C program which crashes
I'm having trouble with a Turbo C program which crashes and says something like ``floating point formats not linked.'' Some compilers for small machines, including Turbo C (and Ritchie's original PDP-11 compiler), leave out certain floating point support if it looks like it will not be needed. In pa...
2015-06-19, 1686👍, 0💬

If the assignment operator were ...
If the assignment operator were :=, wouldn't it then be harder to accidentally write things like if(a = b) ? A: Yes, but it would also be just a little bit more cumbersome to type all of the assignment statements which a typical program contains. In any case, it's really too late to be worrying abou...
2015-01-26, 1685👍, 0💬

I am checking a string to see if it matches a particular value...
I'm checking a string to see if it matches a particular value. Why isn't this code working? char *string; ... if(string == "value") { /* string matches "value" */ ... } Strings in C are represented as arrays of characters, and C never manipulates (assigns, compares, etc.) arrays as a whole. The == o...
2016-03-11, 1683👍, 0💬

How can I automatically locate a programs configuration files in the same directory as the executable?
How can I automatically locate a programs configuration files in the same directory as the executable? It's hard, in general; Even if you can figure out a workable way to do it, you might want to consider making the program's auxiliary (library) directory configurable, perhaps with an environment va...
2015-03-13, 1682👍, 0💬

Was 2000 a leap year?
Was 2000 a leap year? Q: Is (year % 4 == 0) an accurate test for leap years? (Was 2000 a leap year?) A: No, it's not accurate (and yes, 2000 was a leap year). The actual rules for the present Gregorian calendar are that leap years occur every four years, but not every 100 years, except that they do ...
2015-01-05, 1680👍, 0💬

Why is the macro giving me the warning
Why is the macro #define TRACE(n) printf("TRACE: %d\n", n) giving me the warning ``macro replacement within a string literal''? It seems to be expanding TRACE(count); as printf("TRACE: %d\count", count); Some pre-ANSI compilers/preprocessors interpreted macro definitions like #define TRACE(var, fmt)...
2016-01-25, 1675👍, 0💬

Why is p turning out const, instead of the characters pointed to?
I've got the declarations typedef char *charp; const charp p; Why is p turning out const, instead of the characters pointed to? typedef substitutions are not purely textual.In the declaration const charp p; p is const for the same reason that const int i declares i as const. The typedef'ed declarati...
2016-01-04, 1675👍, 0💬

How can f be used for both float and double arguments in printf? Aren't they different types?
How can f be used for both float and double arguments in printf? Aren't they different types? In the variable-length part of a variable-length argument list, the ``default argument promotions'' apply: types char and short int are promoted to int, and float is promoted to double. (These are the same ...
2015-06-17, 1675👍, 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, 1674👍, 0💬

What are near and far pointers?
What are near and far pointers? These days, they're pretty much obsolete; they're definitely system-specific. They had to do with 16-bit programming under MS-DOS and perhaps some early versions of Windows. If you really need to know, see a DOS- or Windows-specific programming reference. If you're us...
2015-03-02, 1674👍, 0💬

Is exit(status) truly equivalent to returning the same status from main?
Is exit(status) truly equivalent to returning the same status from main? Yes and no. The Standard says that a return from the initial call to main is equivalent to calling exit. However, a return from main cannot be expected to work if data local to main might be needed during cleanup; A few very ol...
2015-03-09, 1672👍, 0💬

I have an old macro that doesn't seem to work any more....
I have an old macro #define CTRL(c) ('c' &amp; 037) that doesn't seem to work any more. The intended use of this macro is in code like tchars.t_eofc = CTRL(D); which is expected to expand to tchars.t_eofc = ('D' &amp; 037); based on the assumption that the actual value of the parameter c wil...
2016-01-25, 1671👍, 0💬

Should I use symbolic names like TRUE and FALSE for Boolean constants, or plain 1 and 0?
Should I use symbolic names like TRUE and FALSE for Boolean constants, or plain 1 and 0? It's your choice. Preprocessor macros like TRUE and FALSE (and, of course, NULL) are used for code readability, not because the underlying values might ever change. It's a matter of style, not correctness, wheth...
2015-05-11, 1671👍, 0💬

How can I read in an object file and jump to locations in it?
How can I read in an object file and jump to locations in it? You want a dynamic linker or loader. It may be possible to malloc some space and read in object files, but you have to know an awful lot about object file formats, relocation, etc., and this approach can't work if code and data reside in ...
2015-03-09, 1671👍, 0💬

How can I read a directory in a C program?
How can I read a directory in a C program? See if you can use the opendir and readdir functions, which are part of the POSIX standard and are available on most Unix variants. Implementations also exist for MS-DOS, VMS, and other systems. (MS-DOS also has FINDFIRST and FINDNEXT routines which do esse...
2015-04-01, 1669👍, 0💬

I thought that using large model meant that I could use more than 64K of data!
What does the error message ``DGROUP data allocation exceeds 64K'' mean, and what can I do about it? I thought that using large model meant that I could use more than 64K of data! Even in large memory models, MS-DOS compilers apparently toss certain data (strings, some initialized global or static v...
2015-03-20, 1666👍, 0💬

What is Hungarian Notation? Is it worthwhile?
What is Hungarian Notation? Is it worthwhile? Hungarian Notation is a naming convention, invented by Charles Simonyi, which encodes information about a variable's type (and perhaps its intended use) in its name. It is well-loved in some circles and roundly castigated in others. Its chief advantage i...
2015-05-08, 1665👍, 0💬

<< < 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 > >>   Sort: Date