Thanks Brian and Neil, I will take note on the advice of good coding. I
guess the only confusion here is whether 'argv' is an array name or a
pointer. The whole structure is in MAIN, so my understanding was that it is
an array name, and as such operation like assignment and increment are
illegal. But base on the example, the 'argv' has to be a pointer to be
correct.

Thanks again.

Pang


----- Original Message -----
From: "Neil Bradley" <nb@SYNTHCOM.COM>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: [OT]:C pointer Question


> > There is a line of code at that section -
> >
> > while ( --argc > 0 && ( *++argv ) [0] == '-' )
> >       while ( c= *++argv [0] )
> >                switch (c)  {.......}
> >
> > I do not understand the portion c = *++argv[0]. From what i understand,
the
> > 'result' of that incrementing and dereferencing will be c = argv[0][1],
> > which is wrong.
>
> Note the first (*++argv)[0] means that argv gets ++'d, so it moves past
> argv[0] to argv[1]'s address (skipping past the launch filename).
>
> Now when you do c = *++argv[0], that will increment the pointer of
> argv[1] by 1, skipping past the '-'.
>
> Code like the above is highly unreadable (hence your message), and authors
> of such atrocities should be taken out and maimed, shot, and otherwise
> tortured. ;-) (yes, I know it's K&R, but they weren't the best coders in
> the world).
>
> -->Neil
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
> Neil Bradley            In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is not
> Synthcom Systems, Inc.  king - he's a prisoner.
> ICQ #29402898
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
> (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics