Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!ART@ACC.ARPA
From: ART@ACC.ARPA (Art Berggreen)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: RE: if(p)
Message-ID: <1671@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 14:59:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1671
Posted: Mon Sep 23 14:59:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 11:15:49 EDT
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 20



I've been watching the discussion about "if(pointer)" and have not
seen the following observation:

[I'll probably raise flames requarding booleans under C, but please
treat this as an abstract view.]

From an abstract language viewpoint, an "if" statement conditionally
executes a block of statements based on whether the control statement
evaluates to a condition of *TRUE*.  Pointers by themself do not
have attributes of TRUE vs FALSE.  Thus, "if(pointer)" makes less semantic
sense than "if(pointer == SOME_VALID_POINTER_VALUE)".  What to test against
has been discussed in previous messages.

    				"Art Berggreen"

Please return any flames to .

------