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Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators

From Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups comp.lang.c
Subject Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators
Date 2021-09-05 21:12 +0100
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <87h7eylr24.fsf@bsb.me.uk> (permalink)
References <sh2vvh$oir$1@dont-email.me>

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James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> writes:

> According to
>
>   https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/operator_precedence
>
> and other references C applies relative comparisons (<, <=, >=, >)
> before equality comparisons (==, !=) rather than giving them all the
> same priority.
>
> Anyone know why the precedences were designed that way?
>
> Are there certain idioms in which that arrangement is useful?

I'm curious now too.  I don't know of any, but then I've not see a
particularly large quantity of C code.

There is one that uses arithmetic between comparisons to get a -1, 0, +1
result where such a thing is required:

  (a >= b) - (b >= a)

but that, of course, /needs/ the parentheses.

As to why it's like this, I suspect that DMR just liked lots of
precedence levels to avoid ()s in as many cases as possible.  If you do
decide to separate the groups, one has to be higher than the other and,
though not common or idiomatic, equality and non-equality of comparisons
seem to make more sense than comparisons of equality and non-equality.

-- 
Ben.

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C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2021-09-05 18:49 +0100
  Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Siri Cruise <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2021-09-05 13:11 -0700
  Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-09-05 21:12 +0100
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-09-06 09:09 +0200
  Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2021-09-05 20:19 +0000
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2021-09-05 17:52 -0400
      Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-09-06 00:09 +0100
        Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-09-06 09:15 +0200
          Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-09-06 11:10 +0100
            Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-09-06 13:01 +0200
              Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 04:20 -0700
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2021-09-07 09:27 -0500
      Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-09-08 00:20 +0100
        Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2021-09-08 14:18 -0500
  Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-09-06 02:01 +0100
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 09:39 +0100
      Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-09-06 10:46 +0100
        Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2021-09-06 10:09 -0400
          Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-09-06 16:05 +0100
  Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 09:27 +0100
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 12:18 +0100
      Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-09-06 13:44 +0200
        Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 13:38 +0100
          Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-09-06 18:12 +0200
        Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators tth <tth@none.invalid> - 2021-09-06 18:20 +0200
          Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-09-06 23:40 +0200
      Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 17:20 -0700
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2021-09-06 13:44 +0100
    Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 17:23 -0700
  Re: C precedence - relative comparisons before equality operators James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2021-09-06 23:07 -0400

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