Looking for a dot

rstinejr

I'll probably get raked over the coals for even suggesting that there is a problem here, but this snippet that I ran across while trying to find the cause of a core dump irritates me, and did in fact elicit a WTF. The crash was NOT caused by this code:

        // find the first '.'
        char tok[2];
#if defined (WIN32) && !defined (WINCE)
        sprintf_s(tok, sizeof(tok), "%c", '.');
#else
        sprintf(tok, "%c", '.');
#endif
        char* c;
        c = strstr(pCard->foo, tok);

Why not the following?

        char* c = strstr(p->foo, ".");

I know it's not tragic, not a big deal, but I have a hard enough time figuring stuff out without wading thru clutter and crap.

PJH

Ugh. Even if the second parameter to strstr() wasn't const (which is what I'm assuming the author thought,) why didn't they just

static char tok[]] = ".";

RonBeck62

Perhaps this is a (failed?) attempt at localization? I know I've used something like:
Dim sepCheck As String = Mid(Format(0.0#, "0.0"), 2, 1)
to get a (.|,) as defined by the numeric format settings on the customers machine.

jpa

But hey, atleast it is portable!

TGV

@rstinejr said:

Why not the following?

        char* c = strstr(p->foo, ".");

Or just strchr(p->foo, '.')?

OperatorBastardusInf

The real WTF is... that this is C++ code, not C!

Non-MS compilers like mingw32 do not warn on using the ANSI C functions instead of the proprietary extensions (that years later got pushed into C11).

But MS in C mode does not allow the char* declaration at the end, but only supports declarations at start of blocks (C99 has been totally ignored by MS).

So I conclude this is code compiled by MSVC in C++ mode. And ANY C++ string class has better ways to handle searching for a character than using char*... even std::string! C++ code should never have to manipulate char* string by lowlevel hackery.

dkf

@OperatorBastardusInfernalis said:

should

I advise not using that word too much. Not here.

PJH

@OperatorBastardusInfernalis said:

The real WTF is... that this is C++ code, not C!

Really? Looks more like C to me. I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning that it's C++; there's not a Paamayim Nekudotayim in sight for example.