From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:47:34 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Documentation: Update information about <format> in git-for-each-ref
Message-ID: <7vd5877duh.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <45485A0F.3040807@op5.se>

Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se> writes:

> Jakub Narebski wrote:
>
>> BTW. I had to translate
>> +       if (strcmp(who, "tagger") && strcmp(who, "committer"))
>> to
>> +       if (strcmp(who, "tagger") == 0 || strcmp(who, "committer") == 0)
>> to understand it. But this is probably my lack of contact with such
>> C idioms.
>
> But this does the exact opposite....
> "Compare" (as in "strcmp") also translates to "are equal to" and isn't
> only a verb. This is unfortunate for people who aren't natively
> english and has had me confused on many a long night...

Being a non-English speaker, I always pronounce xxxcmp() used as
boolean 'is different' in my head.  The (correct version of the)
above example expression is read as 'if it is different from
"tagger" and it is different from "committer", then do this'.

Otherwise I pronounce xxxcmp(a,b) "difference"; it's sign
matches (a-b).

if (xxxcmp(a,b) < 0) is similar to if ((a-b) < 0) which is
equivalent to if (a < b).