At 07:36 PM 5/1/2014, John J. McDonough wrote:

>I'm kind of surprised nobody compared the generated code.  The code
>produced by XC16 is identical:
>
>     if ( myBits & 0x0002 )
>         myTestWord =3D 87;
>
>     if (myBitfield.b1)
>         myTestWord =3D 83;
>
>I would argue that the mask code is only clearer if 1) You are doing=20
>some bogus example like this or 2) You are an assembler programmer
>
>With the bitfield you can give the bits names, so for example you could
>say something like:
>
>   if ( LCDstatus.LCDisBusy )
>
>   rather than
>
>   if ( LCDstatus & 0b0000000000100000 )

This has been an informative thread for me.  I'm a diehard assembler=20
programmer and my brain simply refuses to grok "C".  But I keep=20
poking at it, hoping that the AH HA moment will occur.

One of the many things I learned from PIC assembler guru Andrew=20
Warren was to define all of my bit fields with names that are used=20
later in my program.  Your example above would be done as:

   #define LCDisBusy LCDstatus,1
where LCDstatus has previously been defined in exactly the same=20
way.  In use, I simply reference the defined name:
   btfsc  LCDisBusy
     do something

One of the things that really bugs me about C programs is that there=20
didn't appear to be any easy way to do this simple function.  This=20
thread has shown me that there is something relatively close.

Many thanks!

dwayne

--=20
Dwayne Reid   <dwayner@planet.eon.net>
Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd    Edmonton, AB, CANADA
(780) 489-3199 voice          (780) 487-6397 fax
www.trinity-electronics.com
Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing

--=20
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