Some symbols have multiple representations, as shown in Table 1-2. These
alternative tokens have no special meaning in a
character or string literal. They are merely alternative representations
of common symbols. Most programmers do not use alternative tokens,
especially the nonalphabetic ones. Some programmers find and
, or
,
and not
to be easier to read and
understand than &&
, ||
, and !
.
Table 1-2. Alternative tokens
Alternative token | Primary token |
---|---|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
Many compilers do not support some or even all of the alternative
tokens. In particular, some compilers do not treat alternative keywords
(and
, or
, etc.) as reserved keywords, but allow you
to use them as identifiers. Fortunately, this problem is becoming less
common as more vendors hew closer to the standard. Compilers that do not
support the alternative keywords might provide them as macros in the
<ciso646>
header. See Chapter 13 for more information.