我最近纠正了一个 C 程序中的错误:
if (foobar != FOO | BAR | BAZ)
正确的代码是
if (foobar != (FOO | BAR | BAZ))
根据C operator precedence显然 !=
优先于 |
。
我的问题是为什么是这样而不是相反?根据我的经验,我会经常使用 a == b || a == c
或 d == (a | b | c)
,但绝不是 a == b | c == d
。
这个选择背后的逻辑是什么?
这是有历史原因的,引用 Dennis Ritchie 的话:
“Early C had no separate operators for & and && or | and ||. Instead
it used the notion (inherited from B and BCPL) of ‘truth-value
context': where a Boolean value was expected, after ‘if‘ and ‘while‘
and so forth; the & and | operators were interpreted as && and || are
now; in ordinary expressions, the bit-wise interpretations were used.
It worked out pretty well, but was hard to explain. (There was the
notion of ‘top-level operators’ in a truth-value context.) “The
precedence of & and | were as they are now.
Primarily at the urging of
Alan Snyder, the && and || operators were added. This successfully
separated the concepts of bit-wise operations and short-circuit
Boolean evaluation. However, I had cold feet about the precedence
problems. For example, there were lots of programs with things like:
if (a==b & c==d) …
“In retrospect it would have been better to go
ahead and change the precedence of & to higher than ==, but it seemed
safer just to split & and && without moving & past an existing
operator.”