Re: [9fans] fun question

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

On Thu Jan 22 15:55:09 EST 2009, rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
> I ask this every time I hit this piece of code, I think. But what the heck:
>
>   if(seed <- 0)
>     seed = seed + m_31;
>
> what's wrong with this code?

supposing the code does what it is supposed
to on some machines, i would guess that this
could be a problem for sign-magnitude or one's-comp.
machines, since 0 and -0 are different.  if that's
the case, one would guess that the object is to clear
sign bit and -0 is the failure case.

then again, that's a very wild guess and one
would assume that sign = -sign would be
better.

-0 is a strange construction and the spacing
is misleading. it's interesting that atoi(2) and
the differ on "- 0".

- erik