Re: Challenge/exercise problem - signum() function

Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> writes:

On Mon, 12 Aug 2024 08:17:11 -0700, Tim Rentsch wrote:
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Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> writes:
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On 12/08/2024 01:43, Tim Rentsch wrote:

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[...]
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Also, it would be better for your understanding of C if you would
stop thinking about what is going on at the level of actual
hardware.  Doing that serves to confuse a lot more than it helps.

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I think I feel my ears burning!

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I'm taking that as a compliment. :)
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Also as an impetus to post a small C exercise I've been meaning
to put up.
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The goal is to write a C function to compute a signum() value:
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    long
    signum( long k ){
        /* should return
         *      -1 if k < 0
         *      +1 if k > 0
         *       0 otherwise
        **/
        /* ... */
        return  0; /* appropriate return value to be supplied */
    }

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[snip]
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Didn't we do something like this a few years ago, when someone
complained that strcmp() did /not/ return -1, 0, or +1 on
lessthan, equalto, or greaterthan string comparisons?

Certainly there have been similar exercises, but I don't remember
seeing this exact question.  The added restrictions make it more
difficult than it might appear.

If I still have my "solution" around, I'll post it to followup
the more current solutions.

Thank you, it would be good to see that.