Safely Swallowing Up Spaces or Non-Spaces
Can you explain why this is bad? (to swallow up spaces) if( ' ' == *instring) while( ' ' == *instring && *(instring++)); The idea? You encounter a space, and now, while you see spaces and not the NULL ('\0') character, you keep advancing the string pointer. Bad. But why? It's not that dangerous - just not very readable. Better to have while( ) instring++; What is really dangerous? Swallowing up non-spaces using while( ' ' != *instring && *(instring++)); The idea - if the character you see is not a space and not the NULL character, advance the string pointer. But what actually happens? Exactly! The pointer advances EVEN in the case of the NULL ('\0') being encountered at *instring. So, always do while( *instring && ' ' != *instring ) instring++; Much more readable. Yes, in this above snippet, you can be cute and do ' ' != *(instring++);