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strange sum

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  • E ednrg

    24 makes perfect sense to me. I have no idea where 22 came from.

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    Perspx
    wrote on last edited by
    #7

    ednrg wrote:

    I have no idea where 22 came from.

    The clue is probably somewhere in the phrase Visual C++ ;P Regards, --Perspx

    "The Blue Screen of Death, also known as The Blue Screen of Doom, the "Blue Screen of Fun", "Phatul Exception: The WRECKening" and "Windows Vista", is a multi award-winning game first developed in 1995 by Microsoft" - Uncyclopedia Introduction to Object-Oriented JavaScript

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    • F Fer Simoes

      hi everybody, I have recently run into this when taking a silly C++ exam The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; logically I Thought the result would be 21 and I tested it in two compilers: Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22 Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24 I hop you enjoy this as much as I. Greetings

      Regards Fer Simoes

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      Fer Simoes
      wrote on last edited by
      #8

      this is my idea of how 22 came up, by looking at the disassembly the compiler gets the first '++a' and increment a from 5 to 6 then, as thios is a sum it needs the second operand, so get the next '++a' and increments a from 6 to 7. But, when triyng to make the sum it sees 'a' as the two operands for the sum so it uses the last value of 'a' (that is 7) and store it as a result the sum so far is 14 then it sees another su operation with operands 'last_result' and ++a so it increments 'a' from 7 to 8 and sum(last_result + a) giving a value of 22 silly. isn´t it?

      Regards Fer Simoes

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      • P Perspx

        ednrg wrote:

        I have no idea where 22 came from.

        The clue is probably somewhere in the phrase Visual C++ ;P Regards, --Perspx

        "The Blue Screen of Death, also known as The Blue Screen of Doom, the "Blue Screen of Fun", "Phatul Exception: The WRECKening" and "Windows Vista", is a multi award-winning game first developed in 1995 by Microsoft" - Uncyclopedia Introduction to Object-Oriented JavaScript

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        Paul Conrad
        wrote on last edited by
        #9

        Yes. He must have missed that.

        "The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham

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        • F Fer Simoes

          hi everybody, I have recently run into this when taking a silly C++ exam The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; logically I Thought the result would be 21 and I tested it in two compilers: Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22 Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24 I hop you enjoy this as much as I. Greetings

          Regards Fer Simoes

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          PIEBALDconsult
          wrote on last edited by
          #10

          HP C V7.3-009 on OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 reports: int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; ............^ %CC-W-UNDEFVARMOD, In the initializer for c, the expression "++a+++a+++a" modifies the variable "a" more than once without an intervening sequence point. This behavior is undefined. and yields 21.

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          • E ednrg

            24 makes perfect sense to me. I have no idea where 22 came from.

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            PIEBALDconsult
            wrote on last edited by
            #11

            Very large values of 7. Or : "And 1 for good luck"

            modified on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 9:45 PM

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            • C codemunch

              I know it's not C++, but if it's any consolation, VS 2008 w/ C# and .net 3.5 says c == 21

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              leppie
              wrote on last edited by
              #12

              codemunch wrote:

              VS 2008 w/ C# and .net 3.5 says c == 21

              :omg: :wtf: Personally I never use that (++a), except after careful consideration.

              xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
              IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)

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              • P PIEBALDconsult

                HP C V7.3-009 on OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 reports: int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; ............^ %CC-W-UNDEFVARMOD, In the initializer for c, the expression "++a+++a+++a" modifies the variable "a" more than once without an intervening sequence point. This behavior is undefined. and yields 21.

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                Paul Sanders the other one
                wrote on last edited by
                #13

                Yes, I agree. The correct answer is 'undefined'. What a ridiculous question to set in the first place. Shame on you, Mr Examiner, shame on you.

                Paul Sanders http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk

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                • J Justin Cooke

                  Wow, that really is a silly (read bad) exam question. It's the poster child example of an expression with an undefined result (it can be different on different compilers). You can see in the ISO C++ standard here http://www.kuzbass.ru:8086/docs/isocpp/expr.html[^] (look at 5.4) that you can't know the value of this expression. I agree with the others that 21 (6 + 7 + 8) and 24 (8 + 8 + 8) make some kind of sense, but I've got no idea where 22 came from either. Show the standard to your prof, if you're in the mood to argue :). Thanks, Justin

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                  peterchen
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #14

                  It might be that the point of this quesiton WAS to identify the result as undefined.

                  Justin Cooke wrote:

                  but I've got no idea where 22 came from either

                  the increment of a may take place at arbitrary points, so this is entirely possible. However, "result is undefined " means 42 is valid, too :D

                  We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
                  blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist

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                  • P peterchen

                    It might be that the point of this quesiton WAS to identify the result as undefined.

                    Justin Cooke wrote:

                    but I've got no idea where 22 came from either

                    the increment of a may take place at arbitrary points, so this is entirely possible. However, "result is undefined " means 42 is valid, too :D

                    We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
                    blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist

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                    PIEBALDconsult
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #15

                    peterchen wrote:

                    It might be that the point of this quesiton WAS to identify the result as undefined

                    That's the only reason I would ask it, maybe as extra credit or something.

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                    • P PIEBALDconsult

                      HP C V7.3-009 on OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 reports: int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; ............^ %CC-W-UNDEFVARMOD, In the initializer for c, the expression "++a+++a+++a" modifies the variable "a" more than once without an intervening sequence point. This behavior is undefined. and yields 21.

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                      Jerry Jeremiah
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #16

                      You can tell when a company goes to a lot of effort to make their compiler easy to use. The most expensive part of a project is the amount of debugging and fixing bugs. A compiler that can save this much time is a Good Thing.

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                      • L leppie

                        codemunch wrote:

                        VS 2008 w/ C# and .net 3.5 says c == 21

                        :omg: :wtf: Personally I never use that (++a), except after careful consideration.

                        xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
                        IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)

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                        Paul Conrad
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #17

                        I agree. I tend to stick with a++, increment afterwards, not before. That is just asking for weirdness to creep in.

                        "The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham

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                        • F Fer Simoes

                          hi everybody, I have recently run into this when taking a silly C++ exam The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; logically I Thought the result would be 21 and I tested it in two compilers: Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22 Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24 I hop you enjoy this as much as I. Greetings

                          Regards Fer Simoes

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                          Marc Clifton
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #18

                          Fer Simoes wrote:

                          The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a;

                          Answer 1: I don't write crap code like that Answer 2: If your programmers do, I'm not working here Marc

                          Thyme In The Country Interacx My Blog

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                          • F Fer Simoes

                            this is my idea of how 22 came up, by looking at the disassembly the compiler gets the first '++a' and increment a from 5 to 6 then, as thios is a sum it needs the second operand, so get the next '++a' and increments a from 6 to 7. But, when triyng to make the sum it sees 'a' as the two operands for the sum so it uses the last value of 'a' (that is 7) and store it as a result the sum so far is 14 then it sees another su operation with operands 'last_result' and ++a so it increments 'a' from 7 to 8 and sum(last_result + a) giving a value of 22 silly. isn´t it?

                            Regards Fer Simoes

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                            dighn
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #19

                            kinda makes sense if you break down the expression into sum(sum(++a, ++a), ++a)

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                            • F Fer Simoes

                              hi everybody, I have recently run into this when taking a silly C++ exam The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; logically I Thought the result would be 21 and I tested it in two compilers: Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22 Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24 I hop you enjoy this as much as I. Greetings

                              Regards Fer Simoes

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                              L Offline
                              Lost User
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #20

                              Fer Simoes wrote:

                              Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24

                              That's what was also my initial guess.

                              Fer Simoes wrote:

                              Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22

                              I'm not really surprised by that. I mean, it's VC++6, the result could have also been 183 or -55. regards

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                              • E ednrg

                                24 makes perfect sense to me. I have no idea where 22 came from.

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                                Lutoslaw
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #21

                                A harmonic mean of numbers 21 and 24 is 22.4, so the VC compiler takes a floor(harm_mean) as the most expected value.

                                Greetings - Gajatko Portable.NET is part of DotGNU, a project to build a complete Free Software replacement for .NET - a system that truly belongs to the developers.

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                                • M Marc Clifton

                                  Fer Simoes wrote:

                                  The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a;

                                  Answer 1: I don't write crap code like that Answer 2: If your programmers do, I'm not working here Marc

                                  Thyme In The Country Interacx My Blog

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                                  Fer Simoes
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #22

                                  sorry marc, it seems you did not understand the meaning of the post. Nobody here writes crap code :b, it is only for fun

                                  Regards Fer Simoes

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                                  • F Fer Simoes

                                    hi everybody, I have recently run into this when taking a silly C++ exam The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; logically I Thought the result would be 21 and I tested it in two compilers: Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22 Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24 I hop you enjoy this as much as I. Greetings

                                    Regards Fer Simoes

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                                    asadullah ansari
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #23

                                    This sort of thing also dependent on how compiler inplements it, like left to right or right to left. If from left to right or left to right c= ++a means c=6 now a=6 c=6+ ++a means c=7 now a=7 c=13+ ++a means c=8 now a=8 c=13+8 c=21 this results on GCC/g++ compiler. But some compiler evaluate first and then assignment like ++a=>>>a=6 ++a=>>a=7 ++a=>>>a=8 Now c=8+8+8=24 But i dont know how it's giving 22.. No points to give 22 as i think...

                                    Truth Can'nt be changed

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                                    • F Fer Simoes

                                      hi everybody, I have recently run into this when taking a silly C++ exam The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a; logically I Thought the result would be 21 and I tested it in two compilers: Visual C++ 6.0 says c == 22 Visual Studio 2005 says c == 24 I hop you enjoy this as much as I. Greetings

                                      Regards Fer Simoes

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                                      asadullah ansari
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #24

                                      This sort of problem we should not bothered. It can give any result depends on compiler inplements it how???

                                      Truth Can'nt be changed

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                                      • M Marc Clifton

                                        Fer Simoes wrote:

                                        The question was: write the final result for this sum: int a = 5; int c = ++a + ++a + ++a;

                                        Answer 1: I don't write crap code like that Answer 2: If your programmers do, I'm not working here Marc

                                        Thyme In The Country Interacx My Blog

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                                        Le centriste
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #25

                                        I think it makes sense as a C++ exam question, to see if the student understands the operator precedence. I myself never rely on operator precedence, I always use parentheses.

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                                        • A asadullah ansari

                                          This sort of thing also dependent on how compiler inplements it, like left to right or right to left. If from left to right or left to right c= ++a means c=6 now a=6 c=6+ ++a means c=7 now a=7 c=13+ ++a means c=8 now a=8 c=13+8 c=21 this results on GCC/g++ compiler. But some compiler evaluate first and then assignment like ++a=>>>a=6 ++a=>>a=7 ++a=>>>a=8 Now c=8+8+8=24 But i dont know how it's giving 22.. No points to give 22 as i think...

                                          Truth Can'nt be changed

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                                          S Offline
                                          sucram
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #26

                                          It gets 22 like this: ++a++ + a + ++a 7+7+8=22

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