How to evaluate a string in an if-statement 2

[weberm]

I'm something of a C++ novice and I have this legacy code C++ program I am attampting to update. Basically, this program scrapes the contents of an emulator, formats, and then sends the data to a specialized printer. I am attempting to check the value of a single-character field on the emulator to determine how to format the printer data and am running into problems.

static char wBillingType[2];

[blah blah assign value blah]

if (wBillingType == "T") {
   [blah blah]
}
else {
   [blah blah]
}

As I understand it, wBillingType has a length of two to accomodate some sort of terminating value ('/o', IIRC), but I'm obviously doing something wrong becuase the statement never evaluates as TRUE. It's possible I am not setting wBillingTYpe correctly, but I am able to display the value as a character followed by a low-hex value. Any ideas of the obvious solution I am missing?

 

[weberm]

Never mind, I found a solution elsewhere:

if (!stricmp(wBillingType,"T"))

 

[ArkM]

Over 35 years ago this solution was found by a certain D.Ritchy...
Yet another (more effective solution:

if (*wBillingType == 'T')

 

[xwb]

Does *wBillingType work for wBillingType[2]? I remember in the dim and distant past that it only worked on some compilers. Got a feeling it doesn't work on AS400. I'd feel safer using

if (wBillingType[0] == 'T')

 

[weberm]

Ahhh, so using single quotes when referencing wBillingType[0] works! What is the difference between single and double quotes?

 

[Salem]

Or if you're feeling obscure

if (wBillingType[0] == "T"[0])

--
If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.

 

[xwb]

Single quotes for characters, double quotes for strings of characters

char sname[] = {'w', 'e', 'b', 'e', 'r', 'm', '\0'};
char dname[] = "weberm";

The contents of sname and dname are the same.

 

[ArkM]

Builtin operator [] is defined as *(pointer+index) in C and C++. That's why it's commutative operator (see Salem's post). An array name implicitly converted in a pointer to the 1st element in all contexts except sizeof argument. That's why

*array == array[0] // array[0] == *(array+0)
and
array[0] == 0[array]

 

[weberm]

Thanks, guys!