What does a && operator do when there is no left side in C?
I saw a program in C that had code like the following:
static void *arr[1] = {&& varOne,&& varTwo,&& varThree};
varOne: printf("One") ;
varTwo: printf("Two") ;
varThree: printf("Three") ;
I am confused about what the &&
does because there is nothing to the left of it. Does it evaluate as null by default? Or is this a special case?
Edit: Added some more information to make the question/code more clear for my question. Thank you all for the help. This was a case of the gcc specific extension.
Solution 1:
It's a gcc-specific extension, a unary &&
operator that can be applied to a label name, yielding its address as a void*
value.
As part of the extension, goto *ptr;
is allowed where ptr
is an expression of type void*
.
It's documented here in the gcc manual.
You can get the address of a label defined in the current function (or a containing function) with the unary operator
&&
. The value has typevoid *
. This value is a constant and can be used wherever a constant of that type is valid. For example:void *ptr; /* ... */ ptr = &&foo;
To use these values, you need to be able to jump to one. This is done with the computed goto statement,
goto *exp;
. For example,goto *ptr;
Any expression of type
void *
is allowed.
As zwol points out in a comment, gcc uses &&
rather than the more obvious &
because a label and an object with the same name can be visible simultaneously, making &foo
potentially ambiguous if &
means "address of label". Label names occupy their own namespace (not in the C++ sense), and can appear only in specific contexts: defined by a labeled-statement, as the target of a goto
statement, or, for gcc, as the operand of unary &&
.
Solution 2:
This is a gcc extension, known as "Labels as Values". Link to gcc documentation.
In this extension, &&
is a unary operator that can be applied to a label. The result is a value of type void *
. This value may later be dereferenced in a goto
statement to cause execution to jump to that label. Also, pointer arithmetic is permitted on this value.
The label must be in the same function; or in an enclosing function in case the code is also using the gcc extension of "nested functions".
Here is a sample program where the feature is used to implement a state machine:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h>
int main(void)
{
void *tab[] = { &&foo, &&bar, &&qux };
// Alternative method
//ptrdiff_t otab[] = { &&foo - &&foo, &&bar - &&foo, &&qux - &&foo };
int i, state = 0;
srand(time(NULL));
for (i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
goto *tab[state];
//goto *(&&foo + otab[state]);
foo:
printf("Foo\n");
state = 2;
continue;
bar:
printf("Bar\n");
state = 0;
continue;
qux:
printf("Qux\n");
state = rand() % 3;
continue;
}
}
Compiling and execution:
$ gcc -o x x.c && ./x
Foo
Qux
Foo
Qux
Bar
Foo
Qux
Qux
Bar
Foo