Re: Does ternary conditional operator bind the order of evaluation?

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Daniel_Kr=FCgler?= <daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:03:07 CST
Message-ID:
<247233e8-b31e-4181-86bc-3ffed10d5963@d37g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
On 23 Jul., 02:00, itaj sherman <itajsher...@gmail.com> wrote:

std::string output( std::string const& r )
{
        std::string const b( "(" + r + ")" );
        std::cout << b << "; ";
        return b;
}

template< typename ... ri >
nop( ri const& ... r )
{}

the order of evaluation of parameters is unspecified, so the following
expression:
nop( output( output("1") ), output( "2" ) );

can be evaluated in one the following orders (the std::cout output
would be one of the lines):

(1); ((1)); (2);
(2); (1); ((1));
(1); (2); ((1));


Correct.

would the following make any difference?

nop( ( true ? output( output("1") ) : std::string() ),
output( "2" ) );

is the third order still allowed?


I think that the third order is still supported, because
it does not contradict the requirements of the conditional
operator. A possible order could be:

Decide to evaluate first argument first, that is start with
evaluating the conditional operator:

1) Evaluate first operand => true
2) Evaluate top-level expression of second operand
(output("1"))
3) Evaluate second function argument (output( "2" ))
4) Evaluate second-level expression of the second
operand of the conditional operator from the first
argument.

This should still satisfy the order-requirements
of the conditional operator.

Additional to the questionable code-style
recommendation to (ab)use the conditional operator
to enforce the evaluation order, two better
recommendations are:

a) Just accept the current C++ state and write with
the appropriate amount of gnashing of teeth:

std::string first(output( output("1") ));
nop( first, output( "2" ) );

b) Proceed complaining about the current C++
state and require that function arguments are
evaluated in a specified order - I'm not kidding!
(Btw.: Good morning, Hyman Rosen ;-))

HTH & Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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