Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Alternatives to C (was Re: Safety of casting from 'long' to 'int') Date: Wed, 13 May 2026 16:33:11 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 33 Message-ID: <861pfekhqg.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <10su8cn$am9i$1@dont-email.me> <10tof8a$b63$1@dont-email.me> <10tp26r$1l93l$21@dont-email.me> <10tpt9j$c3i4$1@dont-email.me> <10tpvqv$ivo$3@reader1.panix.com> <10ttvng$1j579$1@dont-email.me> <10tu082$1irrv$2@kst.eternal-september.org> <10u069d$285sv$1@dont-email.me> <10u0a0m$2a4nr$1@kst.eternal-september.org> <10u0k0k$1l93l$30@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Wed, 13 May 2026 23:33:12 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="3179643"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/GV0WZYW3uss+8TQ9Tv1QGxdxkR5N8joU="; posting-host="ace8b6eaa328dcf44f89a3207699c4cb" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:yV3QxP7nYw1xhZi87Rlvq1Ra2lI= sha1:Z3HcNsE4WQJFyKQqoZooclXLzMk= sha256:Sc4Ayv1dzLnBJAzi8qAlycmmAtjoORy4/HkpLRAF5Y8= sha1:BVxmmIWdgdAufpdUSjHrT9Ib1jA= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:398913 Janis Papanagnou writes: > On 2026-05-13 00:35, Keith Thompson wrote: > >> [Dropping comp.lang.misc, since this is only about C.] >> Bart writes: >> >>> [...] >> >> [...] >> >>> So the inconvenience of how 'switch' works is excused because >>> /sometimes/ you need fallthrough, or the one time in a thousand you >>> need Duff's device. > > I don't see any inconvenience in "how it works"; it actually > allows programmers to implement both semantics as needed. And > both semantics were needed, they have been used. (Even if you > think your projection of your preferences and limited uses is > what should constitute the global software development world.) I don't use switch() very often. Out of curiosity I looked through some source code that I worked on recently and checked all the switch() statements. Out of roughly 10,000 lines of .c files, there were 10 switch() statements, with 70 "arms" total (either non-trivial 'case's or 'default's) 9 duplicate labels (fallthrough with no extra actions taken) 13 breaks needed So for this sample 'break;' and no 'break;' were roughly equally common, and it was useful to have both.