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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Spurious diagnostic messages
Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 10:52:41 -0700
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Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]
> (What /does/ suit C more is something like:
>
>  int permutation;
>
>   switch (permutation) {
>     case 'ABC':
>     case 'ACB':
>     etc.
>
> Except that such char literals are probably badly defined, and with
> Unicode becoming popular, that introduces problems.)

'ABC' is already a valid character constant.  It has type int and an
implementation-defined value.  (With gcc on my system, its value is
('A'<< 16) + ('B' << 8) + 'C').

It's a feature that I've seen used incorrectly far more often than
it's been used correctly -- and it pretty much *can't* be used
correctly in portable code.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"