From: utzoo!henry Newsgroups: net.lang.c Title: not in love with side effects Article-I.D.: utzoo.2815 Posted: Wed Feb 9 22:53:44 1983 Received: Wed Feb 9 22:53:44 1983 " if (i++ * (A-B) > 20) { /* is i incremented? */ . . . Sure programmers are warned about counting on side-effects, but we all use them when there doesn't seem to be a problem..." Speak for yourself. Quite apart from mistrusting compiler handling of sequences like the above, I find them obscure and hard to read. I'll make the increment and the test separate statements every time.