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Appalling Coding Technique

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  • J James Spibey

    I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

    if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
    {
    ...

    I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

    #define CANT !

    Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

    S Offline
    S Offline
    Simon Walton
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    Almost as great as

    #define private public

    :-D

    Simon Walton
    Sonork: 10024

    P

    T 1 Reply Last reply
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    • S Stephane Rodriguez

      Oh :omg: I have seen that one too in an old code I was expected to maintain : IFP(ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg)) So i started wondering what could have been the magical things behind IFP. I was thinking about run-time object validation, and stuff like that. It fell short, #define IFP if :omg: :omg: :omg:

      M Offline
      M Offline
      Matt Newman
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      .S.Rod. wrote: #define IFP if :omg::wtf::omg::wtf::omg::wtf: -:suss:Matt Newman / Windows XP Activist:suss:
      "Well, the guy that's giving you a hard time is a f***in moron, and you can tell him thats straight from another Linux user." - John Simmons on Linux Users
      Just do the American thing and shoot him... - Jim Crafton on Linux Users
      Wh3n my l33t skillz 1mpr0v3, I w1ll h4ck M$, 4nd th3n wh0 w1ll b3 l4ugh1ng ? N0t Bill. H4 h4 h4 h4 h4 h4 h4. - Christian Graus

      1 Reply Last reply
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      • S Stephane Rodriguez

        Oh :omg: I have seen that one too in an old code I was expected to maintain : IFP(ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg)) So i started wondering what could have been the magical things behind IFP. I was thinking about run-time object validation, and stuff like that. It fell short, #define IFP if :omg: :omg: :omg:

        M Offline
        M Offline
        Megan Forbes
        wrote on last edited by
        #7

        Where do you guys find these people? :eek:


        I knew it would end badly when I first met Chris in a Canberra alleyway and he said 'try some - it won't hurt you'..... - Christian Graus on Code Project outages A moment of silence please. A programmer's best friend has passed beyond that great exception in the sky.... - Mark Conger on "The coffee machine has died"

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        • J James Spibey

          I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

          if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
          {
          ...

          I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

          #define CANT !

          Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

          D Offline
          D Offline
          Daniel Turini
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          It looks someone being funny. In old college times, we used to work Turbo C 2.0 on computers (a 286 was quite expensive that time, about $5000) which were shared with other courses, so they were always occupied. To speed up people freeing a computer, I added the following "feature" to stdio.h, on the best machine we got:

          #define while(x) while(1)

          Obviously, I used "touch" to reset the file date and time back to the original one. People blamed the computer "this machine is fast but is damaged" :-O My latest article: SQL Server DO's and DONT's[^]

          S 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • D Daniel Turini

            It looks someone being funny. In old college times, we used to work Turbo C 2.0 on computers (a 286 was quite expensive that time, about $5000) which were shared with other courses, so they were always occupied. To speed up people freeing a computer, I added the following "feature" to stdio.h, on the best machine we got:

            #define while(x) while(1)

            Obviously, I used "touch" to reset the file date and time back to the original one. People blamed the computer "this machine is fast but is damaged" :-O My latest article: SQL Server DO's and DONT's[^]

            S Offline
            S Offline
            Simon Walton
            wrote on last edited by
            #9

            Daniel Turini wrote: #define while(x) while(1) Priceless. :-D I didn't know you could use x to stand for anything in a define.

            Simon Walton
            Sonork: 10024

            P

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • J James Spibey

              I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

              if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
              {
              ...

              I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

              #define CANT !

              Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

              D Offline
              D Offline
              David Patrick
              wrote on last edited by
              #10

              I'm sorry .. but I actually liked that .. certainly makes it nice and readable.

              T D 2 Replies Last reply
              0
              • S Simon Walton

                Almost as great as

                #define private public

                :-D

                Simon Walton
                Sonork: 10024

                P

                T Offline
                T Offline
                Todd C Wilson
                wrote on last edited by
                #11

                Actualy, I've had to resort to doing that exactly once to hack around the broken Microsoft STL headers... simply no other way to get it to work, other than using STLPort, which the PHB's refuses to use since it wasn't a "commerical" product


                Visual Studio Favorites - improve your development! GUIgui - skin your apps without XP

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • D David Patrick

                  I'm sorry .. but I actually liked that .. certainly makes it nice and readable.

                  T Offline
                  T Offline
                  Tim Smith
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  :~ Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • J James Spibey

                    I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                    if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                    {
                    ...

                    I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                    #define CANT !

                    Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                    M Offline
                    M Offline
                    Maximilien
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    At a company I used to work, there was a bunch of francophone linguist that were really good in their field of work, but didn't know much in programming, and since they had to work in the code to implement their things, someone ( before I worked there ) decided to redefine some of the keyword to be in french...

                    #define for pour
                    #define if si
                    #define else sinon
                    ...

                    so in some source files, there was a lot of french code mixed in! Max.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • J James Spibey

                      I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                      if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                      {
                      ...

                      I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                      #define CANT !

                      Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                      A Offline
                      A Offline
                      Alvaro Mendez
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      Well, you have to give the guy some credit for trying to make the code more readable. Did you know that the C++ Standard Library has these defines:

                      #define and &&
                      #define and_eq &=
                      #define bitand &
                      #define bitor |
                      #define compl ~
                      #define not !
                      #define not_eq !=
                      #define or ||
                      #define or_eq |=
                      #define xor ^
                      #define xor_eq ^=

                      I don't use them myself (I'm used to the cryptic syntax) but doing so can definitely improve readability. Regards, Alvaro


                      Well done is better than well said. -- Benjamin Franklin (I actually prefer medium-well.)

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                      • D David Patrick

                        I'm sorry .. but I actually liked that .. certainly makes it nice and readable.

                        D Offline
                        D Offline
                        Daniel Turini
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #15

                        So... It was YOU who did it!!! Only one person in the world can like it :) My latest article: SQL Server DO's and DONT's[^]

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • J James Spibey

                          I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                          if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                          {
                          ...

                          I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                          #define CANT !

                          Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                          J Offline
                          J Offline
                          Joao Vaz
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #16

                          The virtues of Hungarian notation :laugh: Cheers,Joao Vaz And if your dream is to care for your family, to put food on the table, to provide them with an education and a good home, then maybe suffering through an endless, pointless, boring job will seem to have purpose. And you will realize how even a rock can change the world, simply by remaining obstinately stationary.-Shog9 Remember just because a good thing comes to an end, doesn't mean that the next one can't be better.-Chris Meech

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • M Megan Forbes

                            Where do you guys find these people? :eek:


                            I knew it would end badly when I first met Chris in a Canberra alleyway and he said 'try some - it won't hurt you'..... - Christian Graus on Code Project outages A moment of silence please. A programmer's best friend has passed beyond that great exception in the sky.... - Mark Conger on "The coffee machine has died"

                            R Offline
                            R Offline
                            Roger Wright
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #17

                            Megan Forbes wrote: Where do you guys find these people? Coders 'R' Us. Either that, or they get them free in their breakfast cereal! You've got to be careful about criticising though... I once bashed a particularly onerous piece of cryptic spaghetti code I was assigned to port to a new system. My boss was less than sympathetic, as (unknown to me) he had written it 10 years before.:-O "My child was Inmate of the Month at Mohave County Jail" - Bumper Sticker in Bullhead City, AZ

                            A 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • J James Spibey

                              I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                              if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                              {
                              ...

                              I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                              #define CANT !

                              Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                              P Offline
                              P Offline
                              Phil J Pearson
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #18

                              Many years ago I remember programming in PL/M (I think that was the language) with a construct like:

                              REPEAT
                              ...
                              UNTIL the$cows$come$home

                              with the equivalent (I can't remember the language) of:

                              #define the$cows$come$home 0

                              It semmed amusing at the time...


                              The opinions expressed in this communication do not necessarily represent those of the author (especially if you find them impolite, discourteous or inflammatory).

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • S Stephane Rodriguez

                                Oh :omg: I have seen that one too in an old code I was expected to maintain : IFP(ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg)) So i started wondering what could have been the magical things behind IFP. I was thinking about run-time object validation, and stuff like that. It fell short, #define IFP if :omg: :omg: :omg:

                                J Offline
                                J Offline
                                Joao Vaz
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #19

                                .S.Rod. wrote: It fell short, #define IFP if Yikes :eek: , there are some strange guys in the force ... Cheers,Joao Vaz And if your dream is to care for your family, to put food on the table, to provide them with an education and a good home, then maybe suffering through an endless, pointless, boring job will seem to have purpose. And you will realize how even a rock can change the world, simply by remaining obstinately stationary.-Shog9 Remember just because a good thing comes to an end, doesn't mean that the next one can't be better.-Chris Meech

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • J James Spibey

                                  I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                                  if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                                  {
                                  ...

                                  I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                                  #define CANT !

                                  Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                                  J Offline
                                  J Offline
                                  Jason Gerard
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #20

                                  Here's some nice indenting that a co-worker of mine practices. if(something) { while(somethingElse) { // some crap code here // some more crap here } }
                                  Jason Gerard "This almost never matters, except quite often."

                                  S 1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • J Jason Gerard

                                    Here's some nice indenting that a co-worker of mine practices. if(something) { while(somethingElse) { // some crap code here // some more crap here } }
                                    Jason Gerard "This almost never matters, except quite often."

                                    S Offline
                                    S Offline
                                    Stephane Rodriguez
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #21

                                    Sometimes unfortunately produced by source code diff mergers such as Clearcase and Araxis.

                                    J 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • J James Spibey

                                      I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                                      if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                                      {
                                      ...

                                      I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                                      #define CANT !

                                      Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                                      C Offline
                                      C Offline
                                      Chris Maunder
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #22

                                      James Spibey wrote: Time for random acts of violence around the office. Ah...A new sig :-D cheers, Chris Maunder Time for random acts of violence around the office - James Spibey

                                      J 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • J James Spibey

                                        I've just been trying to debug some old C code and I stumbled across this little beauty

                                        if ( CANT ValidateIncomingGoods(pMsg))
                                        {
                                        ...

                                        I'm thinking, 'WTF is this CANT thing?' So I grep around a little and at the top of the file I find

                                        #define CANT !

                                        Time for random acts of violence around the office. Cheers James

                                        R Offline
                                        R Offline
                                        Ray Cassick
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #23

                                        Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa I came across something similar.. Someone around here had redefined the following

                                        EQUALTO
                                        ASSIGNTO
                                        GTRTHN (greater than)
                                        LESTHN (less than)
                                        GTRLES (greater than or less than)
                                        .
                                        .
                                        .

                                        You get the idea... Made for some interesting (and suprisingly readable) code, but drove some younger coders NUTS! Paul Watson wrote: At the end of the day it is what you produce that counts, not how many doctorates you have on the wall.

                                        R 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • R Ray Cassick

                                          Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa I came across something similar.. Someone around here had redefined the following

                                          EQUALTO
                                          ASSIGNTO
                                          GTRTHN (greater than)
                                          LESTHN (less than)
                                          GTRLES (greater than or less than)
                                          .
                                          .
                                          .

                                          You get the idea... Made for some interesting (and suprisingly readable) code, but drove some younger coders NUTS! Paul Watson wrote: At the end of the day it is what you produce that counts, not how many doctorates you have on the wall.

                                          R Offline
                                          R Offline
                                          Roger Allen
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #24

                                          Perhaps an ex COBOL programmer? Roger Allen Sonork 100.10016 In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation. - Roger Allen, but not me!

                                          R 1 Reply Last reply
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