[Bf-committers] new round of warning hunt : some goofy things i cant decide on

[Robert Wenzlaff (AB8TD)]

On Saturday 04 June 2005 07:29, Vio wrote:
> Duh. I've heard somewhere that *casts* is a way to cheat the compiler,
> but then again, if you
> want your code to compile, what other choice is there (besides hacking
> the offending sources)?

Well, casting ensures that compiler will do what you intended. It's not just 
hiding a warning.  There are a set of rules built into the language that 
determine when to promote or demote variables between differeent types.  The 
rules attempt to be "fail-safe", but can not be all-inclusive, though.  And I 
don't waste my time memorizing a bunch of precidence tables when typing in a 
cast will do.

Then again, once you use a cast, you have completely abandoned the "fail-safe" 
rules and are on your own.  So make sure you understand what is being 
attempted before you hush the warnings with a cast.  You might be hiding 
something that needs to really be fixed.  C'est la C.

int i = *(short *)(&((&my_float)[1])); 

might be syntactically OK, but it won't do what you think it will (unless you 
are trying to cause a segfault).
-- 
************************************************************
If the source code is of any help to a cracker in decrypting
 a data stream, then the binary wasn't particularly helpful
           to the user when encrypting it.
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Robert Wenzlaff                  rwenzlaff at soylent-green.com