Side Effect (computer Science) - Example

Example

One common demonstration of side effect behavior is that of the assignment operator in C++. For example, the assignment operator returns the right operand and has the side effect of assigning that value to a variable. This allows for syntactically clean multiple assignment:

int i, j; i = j = 3;

Because the C++ assignment operator right associates, this equates to

int i, j; i = (j = 3); //j = 3 returns 3, which then gets assigned to i

Where the result of assigning 3 into "j" then gets assigned into "i". This presents a potential hangup for novice programmers who may confuse

while (b == 10) {} //Tests if b evaluates to 10

with

// The assignment function returns 10 // which automatically casts to "true" // so the loop conditional always evaluates to true while (b = 10) {}

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