Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Programming exercise/challenge Date: Sun, 06 Dec 2020 06:13:28 -0800 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 46 Message-ID: <86y2ibja47.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <86wnxwkyol.fsf@linuxsc.com> <5MQyH.103588$lo15.100353@fx35.iad> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="048215ee9820886844dd3aade67dded3"; logging-data="31388"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+MRY2xGGv3R0deyJFskAAfy8wv4p0iVaI=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:plOgMt022j+DNk7mAHy/eB0xiIw= sha1:y9nJW17D7C1UacymGxH4u87ZfsM= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:156979 Jorgen Grahn writes: > On Sat, 2020-12-05, dfs wrote: > >> On 12/05/2020 11:25 AM, Tim Rentsch wrote: >> >>> Prompted by some recent discussion regarding 'goto' statements and >>> state machines, I would like to propose a programming exercise. >>> (It is perhaps a bit too large to be called an exercise, but not so >>> difficult that it deserves the label of challenge. On the other >>> hand there are some constraints so maybe challenge is apropos. In >>> any case somewhere in between those two bounds.) >>> >>> Short problem statement: a C program to remove comments from C >>> source input. >>> >>> Specifics: Remove both /*...*/ and //... style comments. Don't >>> worry about trigraphs. Read from stdin, write to stdout, and >>> diagnostics (if any) go to stderr. If EOF is seen inside a >>> comment, do something sensible but it doesn't matter what as long >>> as it's sensible. Use no 'goto' statements. Limit function >>> bodies to no more than 25 lines. >>> >>> Other: feel free to handle corner cases as you see fit, as long >>> as there is some description of what choice was made. >>> >>> Hopefully it will be a fun exercise. It isn't trivial but it >>> shouldn't take too long either. >> >> Shortest code "wins"? > > He didn't say anything about that, and code size isn't a good > indicator of anything, so I'd say "no". Right. > It's a nice problem. Thank you sir. Always good to hear. > (Unfortunately I'm participating in Advent of Code already, and > together with hobby projects that takes up all my programming > attention.) Sorry to hear you won't have time for this one, but good luck with your other efforts.