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How can I call system when parameters (filenames, etc.) of the executed command arent known until run time?
How can I call system when parameters (filenames, etc.) of the executed command arent known until run time? Just use sprintf (or perhaps strcpy and strcat) to build the command string in a buffer, then call system with that buffer. (Make sure the buffer is allocated with enough space; Here is a cont...
2015-03-18, 1803👍, 0💬

Why isnt any of this standardized in C? Any real program has to do some of these things.
Why isnt any of this standardized in C? Any real program has to do some of these things. Actually, some standardization has occurred along the way. In the beginning, C did not have a standard library at all; programmers always had to ``roll their own'' utility routines. After several abortive attemp...
2015-02-27, 1802👍, 0💬

How can I direct output to the printer?
How can I direct output to the printer? Under Unix, either use popen to write to the lp or lpr program, or perhaps open a special file like /dev/lp. Under MS-DOS, write to the (nonstandard) predefined stdio stream stdprn, or open the special files PRN or LPT1. Under some circumstances, another (and ...
2015-04-22, 1800👍, 0💬

Should I use symbolic names like TRUE and FALSE for Boolean constants, or plain 1 and 0?
Should I use symbolic names like TRUE and FALSE for Boolean constants, or plain 1 and 0? It's your choice. Preprocessor macros like TRUE and FALSE (and, of course, NULL) are used for code readability, not because the underlying values might ever change. It's a matter of style, not correctness, wheth...
2016-02-29, 1799👍, 0💬

I have some old code that tries to construct identifiers with a macro like ...
I have some old code that tries to construct identifiers with a macro like #define Paste(a, b) a/**/b but it doesn't work any more. It was an undocumented feature of some early preprocessor implementations (notably Reiser's) that comments disappeared entirely and could therefore be used for token pa...
2016-01-27, 1798👍, 0💬

Each time I run my program, I get the same sequence of numbers back from rand
Each time I run my program, I get the same sequence of numbers back from rand It's a characteristic of most pseudo-random number generators (and a defined property of the C library rand) that they always start with the same number and go through the same sequence. (Among other things, a bit of predi...
2015-07-29, 1797👍, 0💬

Can I use base-2 constants (something like 0b101010)? Is there a printf format for binary?
Can I use base-2 constants (something like 0b101010)? Is there a printf format for binary? No, on both counts, although there are various preprocessor tricks you can try. You can convert base-2 string representations to integers with strtol. If you need to print numbers out in base 2, .
2015-02-13, 1797👍, 0💬

Is it acceptable for one header file to #include another?
Is it acceptable for one header file to #include another? It's a question of style, and thus receives considerable debate. Many people believe that ``nested #include files'' are to be avoided: the prestigious Indian Hill Style Guide disparages them; they can make it harder to find relevant definitio...
2016-02-16, 1795👍, 0💬

How can I recover the file name given an open stream or file descriptor?
How can I recover the file name given an open stream or file descriptor? This problem is, in general, insoluble. Under Unix, for instance, a scan of the entire disk (perhaps involving special permissions) would theoretically be required, and would fail if the descriptor were connected to a pipe or r...
2015-04-10, 1795👍, 0💬

What is hashing?
What is hashing? Hashing is the process of mapping strings to integers, usually in a relatively small range. A ``hash function'' maps a string (or some other data structure) to a bounded number (the ``hash bucket'') which can more easily be used as an index in an array, or for performing repeated co...
2015-01-07, 1795👍, 0💬

I inherited some code which contains far too many ...
I inherited some code which contains far too many #ifdef's for my taste. How can I preprocess the code to leave only one conditional compilation set, without running it through the preprocessor and expanding all of the #include's and #define's as well? There are programs floating around called unifd...
2016-01-29, 1793👍, 0💬

How does VB.NET/C# achieve polymorphism?
How does VB.NET/C# achieve polymorphism? By using Abstract classes/functions.
2014-01-22, 1793👍, 0💬

fopen isnt letting me open files like "$HOME/.profile" and "~/.myrcfile".
fopen isn't letting me open files like "$HOME/.profile" and "~/.myrcfile". Under Unix, at least, environment variables like $HOME, along with the home-directory notation involving the ~ character, are expanded by the shell, and there's no mechanism to perform these expansions automatically when you ...
2015-04-06, 1791👍, 0💬

I need some code to do regular expression and wildcard matching.
I need some code to do regular expression and wildcard matching. Make sure you recognize the difference between: * Classic regular expressions, variants of which are used in such Unix utilities as ed and grep. In regular expressions, a dot . usually matches any single character, and the sequence .* ...
2015-08-12, 1790👍, 0💬

What is the difference between ...
What's the difference between const MAXSIZE = 100; and #define MAXSIZE 100 A preprocessor #define gives you a true compile-time constant. In C, const gives you a run-time object which you're not supposed to try to modify; ``const'' really means ``readonly''.
2016-02-18, 1788👍, 0💬

I have been replacing multiplications and divisions with shift operators, because shifting is more efficient.
I have been replacing multiplications and divisions with shift operators, because shifting is more efficient. This is an excellent example of a potentially risky and usually unnecessary optimization. Any compiler worthy of the name can replace a constant, power-of-two multiplication with a left shif...
2015-02-09, 1788👍, 0💬

How can I find out how much memory is available?
How can I find out how much memory is available? Your operating system may provide a routine which returns this information, but it's quite system-dependent. (Also, the number may vary over time.) If you're trying to predict whether you'll be able to allocate a certain amount of memory, just try it-...
2015-03-30, 1786👍, 0💬

Does C have circular shift operators?
Does C have circular shift operators? No. (Part of the reason why is that the sizes of C's types aren't precisely defined----but a circular shift makes most sense when applied to a word of a particular known size.) You can implement a circular shift using two regular shifts and a bitwise OR: (x &...
2015-01-28, 1784👍, 0💬

How can I automatically locate a programs configuration files in the same directory as the executable?
How can I automatically locate a programs configuration files in the same directory as the executable? It's hard, in general; Even if you can figure out a workable way to do it, you might want to consider making the program's auxiliary (library) directory configurable, perhaps with an environment va...
2015-03-13, 1782👍, 0💬

I heard that you have to include ......
I heard that you have to #include before calling printf. Why? So that a proper prototype for printf will be in scope. A compiler may use a different calling sequence for functions which accept variable-length argument lists. (It might do so if calls using variable-length argument lists were less eff...
2016-01-08, 1779👍, 0💬

Can you mix old-style and new-style function syntax?
Can you mix old-style and new-style function syntax? Doing so is legal (and can be useful for backwards compatibility), but requires a certain amount of care . Modern practice, however, is to use the prototyped form in both declarations and definitions. (The old-style syntax is marked as obsolescent...
2016-01-13, 1777👍, 0💬

What if a built-in logical or relational operator `returns something other than 1? ....
Isn't #defining TRUE to be 1 dangerous, since any nonzero value is considered ``true'' in C? What if a built-in logical or relational operator ``returns'' something other than 1? It is true (sic) that any nonzero value is considered true in C, but this applies only ``on input'', i.e. where a Boolean...
2016-02-29, 1775👍, 0💬

I have an old macro that doesn't seem to work any more....
I have an old macro #define CTRL(c) ('c' &amp; 037) that doesn't seem to work any more. The intended use of this macro is in code like tchars.t_eofc = CTRL(D); which is expected to expand to tchars.t_eofc = ('D' &amp; 037); based on the assumption that the actual value of the parameter c wil...
2016-01-25, 1772👍, 0💬

What is the right way to use errno?
What is the right way to use errno? In general, you should detect errors by checking return values, and use errno only to distinguish among the various causes of an error, such as ``File not found'' or ``Permission denied''. (Typically, you use perror or strerror to print these discriminating error ...
2015-02-23, 1772👍, 0💬

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