Comment by dboon

2 days ago

How would you write https://github.com/tspader/sp/blob/main/example/ls.c in your statically typed language of choice? To be fair, this is definitely the kindest example to my library, but one reason I felt this project was worth pursuing was that that example reads basically like a slightly worse TypeScript to me. In other words, quite nice for how low level the code really is.

2 comments

dboon

skybrian 1 day ago

In a higher-level language, you wouldn't need to write code like this:

  const sp_fs_entry_t* a = (const sp_fs_entry_t*)pa;
  const sp_fs_entry_t* b = (const sp_fs_entry_t*)pb;
  return sp_str_compare_alphabetical(a->name, b->name);

Instead it would just be:

  return sp_str_compare_alphabetical(pa->name, pb->name)

With the correct types declared for the parameter types instead of void pointers.

Or if you do need a cast, not having to write "sp_fs_entry_t*" twice in the same line because the local variable's type is inferred.

Maybe after reading C for a while, you don't see all the noise anymore?

tom_ 21 hours ago

Because it's const void *pa, you don't need the cast. A void * pointer will convert to any other kind of pointer. Now you only need to mention the type once. (I forget the const-related rules, but since the consts match in this case I don't think it'll be relevant.)