Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes:

[...]

In any event, this seems simpler than what you posted:
>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        if (argc != 2) {
                fprintf(stderr, "Usage: matchd <str>\n");
                return EXIT_FAILURE;
        }
>
        for (const char *p = argv[1]; *p != '\0'; p++)
                if ('0' <= *p && *p <= '9')
                        return EXIT_SUCCESS;
>
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
}

It's not only 4 lines longer but in just about every individual aspect
syntactically more complicated and more messy and functionally more
clumsy. This is particularly noticable in the loop

         for (const char *p = argv[1]; *p != '\0'; p++)
                 if ('0' <= *p && *p <= '9')
                         return EXIT_SUCCESS;

the loop header containing a spuriously qualified variable declaration,
the loop body and half of the termination condition. The other half then
follows as special-case in the otherwise useless loop body.

It looks like a copy of my code which each individual bit redesigned
under the guiding principle of "Can we make this more complicated?", eg,

char **argv

declares an array of pointers (as each pointer in C points to an array)
and

char *argv[]

accomplishes exactly the same but uses both more characters and more
different kinds of characters.