What is the "-->" operator in C/C++?
stackoverflow.com
After reading Hidden Features and Dark Corners of C++/STL on comp.lang.c++.moderated, I was completely surprised that the following snippet compiled and worked in both Visual Studio 2008 and G++ 4.4.
  • @dragnucs
    6•3 years ago

    While it is practical and works, it is not an operator by itself. It a combination of two, the unary decrementation and greater than comparator.

    Read it as i-- > value.

    • @xarvosOP
      6•3 years ago

      As explained by multiple answers in the link :)

      I’m mainly pointing at the sarcastic answers on that link

      • @Adda
        1•3 years ago

        Yeah, I have just read through some of those. It is hilarious what people can come up with.

    • Ephera
      2•3 years ago

      Honestly, I’m not sure which I think is worse. Having an explicit down-to operator or being able to combine operators in a way that confuses experienced programmers.

      • @xarvosOP
        1•3 years ago

        Kotlin has one (well, more like keyword, but aren’t operators just keywords written in non-alphabetic) downTo

        • Ephera
          2•3 years ago

          It wouldn’t have surprised me at all, if they did (they love their keywords), but that one actually isn’t a keyword. It’s an extension method implemented for the various number types, so you can also write 5.downTo(1).

      • dinomug
        1•3 years ago

        This kind of combined operators are quite common in the competitive programming world, where the speed of coding is more important than readable.

        • Ephera
          4•3 years ago

          Yeah, still horrid for real-world programming, though, where readability is ten times as important as how quickly you can type it out.

          • Tmpod
            1•3 years ago

            I’d argue the problem here is more the unary (in/de)crement operator. It isn’t really necessary and most of the time it doesn’t make stuff more readable.