my teacher gave it to us....

[jacek]

Hello. Our teacher gave us this piece of code:

#include <stdio.h>

#define PR(a,f) printf (#a "= %#f"\t", (int)(a) )
#define PRINT(a,f) PR(a,f); putchar ('/n')
#define PRINT2(a,b,f1,f2) PR(a,f1); PRINT(b,f2)
#define PRINT3(a,b,c,f1,f2,f3)   \
                       PR(a,f1); PRINT2(b,c,f2,f3)
#define MAX(a,b) (a<b ? b : a)
#define TAB(c,i,oi,t) if(c=='\t')\
      for (t=8-(i-oi-1)%8, oi=i; t; t--)\
      putchar('*')

void main (void)
{
    {
        int x=19, y=20;
        PRINT3 ( MAX(x++,y), x, y ,d,d,d);
        PRINT3 ( MAX(x++,y), x, y ,d,d,d);
    }
    {
        static char input[] = "\tlight\tweight";
        char c;
        int i, oldi, temp;

        for (oldi=-1, i=0; (c=input[i])!='\0'; i++)
        TAB (c, i, oldi, temp);
        else putchar(c);
        putchar('\n');
    }
}

The answer is:

(x++<y ? y : x++)= 24   x= 24 y= 24
(x++<y ? y : x++)= 25   x= 24 y= 24
********black***night

The problem is that we were given it very lately and he didn't even start explaining it. He said that we had very little time (which is true) and we should 'figure it out' by ourselves. I have no idea what's going on there and I know that majority of my classmates (and all of those who I asked) are in the same position as me. I don't know how it may learn us C, but we are given points by him and we must survive it.

Could any of you post some instructions to this program? At least 15 people will benefit from this.

Thanks in advance!

[laserlight]

What is the question? What do you mean by "instructions to this program"?

[jacek]

I mean how this program outputs that answer.

[Salem]

> I don't know how it may learn us C
That's OK, neither do I.

A lot of very bad teachers (yours seems to be one of them) seem to think throwing random bits of crap code about (which this is some) is in some way useful.

For info, this should be filed under "stupid pre-processor tricks".

If you want to find out what happens, then look at
gcc -E prog.c
which should IIRC create a prog.i file which is your .c file with all the #define stuff expanded into real code.

This kind of meta-programming using all sorts of pre-processor tricks is occasionally useful and sometimes a necessary evil. But only after you've been programming for a long while, and are writing quite large programs.

Trying to teach it to students is a waste of effort. You're not likely to use that information for a good while, and when/if you do, you'll have a lot better idea as to what it is you're trying to solve.