Function converting from 1-7 for days of the week to actual strings

**iMalc** · 01-02-2008

assert is a debug-only check that breaks you into the debugger at the point where the statement was false.
On an embedded system I guess you'd need to implement your own form of assert, that perhaps just logs the error. What you've written could be fine for you.

**stanlvw** · 01-03-2008

I have another question:

Given the function declaration of the number to string conversion being:

Code:

const char* getDayOfWeekName(int inDayIndex);

and the LCD string output function being:

Code:

void LCD4_OUT(char* outstr);

I'm pretty bad at signatures. I'm not sure how to put the LCD4_OUT function call using the return value of the getDayOfTheWeek function properly. I have tried:

Code:

LCD4_OUT(getDayOfWeekName((int) access_day_number()));

also

Code:

char* dow;
dow = &(getDayOfWeekName((int) access_day_number()));
LCD4_OUT(dow);

I got an error of operands not operable on the function call with the ampersand or illegal pointer conversion. Any help would be much appreciated.

**zacs7** · 01-03-2008

Code:

char * dow;
dow = getDayOfWeekName((int) access_day_number());
LCD4_OUT(dow);

You've already got the address...

**Elysia** · 01-03-2008

Disapprove. If case of error, return NULL (ie, an error occurred and no pointer could be returned).

**zacs7** · 01-03-2008

Don't return a NULL pointer on error, return Saturday -- Because everyone loves saturdays!

**Elysia** · 01-03-2008

That would be confusing. That would tell the caller the function succeeded. I hope you're sarcastic on that one...

**matsp** · 01-03-2008

In this case, I would say that having an assert in the code to check the value, combined with returning a "unknown" string if it's not a valid value would be the right thing to do. Returning a NULL is ok-ish, but if it's not checked in the calling code, it's likely to just make things worse than a "Unknown" value.

--
Mats

**Elysia** · 01-03-2008

True, but it's the caller's responsibility to check if it failed.
And returning an "error string" is just poor programming IMO. Computers don't deal with strings. They deal with numbers. Returning an error code or a struct or class with error information is much more informative than a string.
If such is the case, do the usual pass in an extra argument to receive if it failed or not, or to get the string and to return an error.

**matsp** · 01-03-2008

I guess it depends on how you want to use it, and what the consequences are. Returning NULL can cause the app to crash [in fact, it probably SHOULD crash if it tries to access the NULL pointer], returning a "Unknown" will just cause "strange" results for the user - which is preferable in some cases - particularly if the system is intended to run for a long time. It does mean that the error checking is harder - but that's why I suggested having an assert in the function itself.

In fact, if it's critical that the "invalid day" is properly captured, I would suggest that putting code in to "crash out" inside the GetDayOfWeek, rather than propagating the error back to the calling function - it doesn't really help to propagate it back down, as that will only make it harder to see what's going wrong.

--
Mats

**Elysia** · 01-03-2008

An assert is always good to track down simple mistakes such as this one. The application should never call the function with an invalid value.
I think in this case you can probably get away with just an assert since you are responsible for passing correct information to the function.
Otherwise I would definitely place an an assert and return NULL, or add an argument to the the string and return success or failure. In that case, I could easily return "Unknown" and get away with it since I wouldn't be comparing the string itself for errors, but the return value.

**stanlvw** · 01-03-2008

I already tried using an assert, but unfortunately it's not supported. I'm still not too sure how to reference the pointers properly to get the LCD to display the string on the days of the week text.