./C sequence point explained

posted by cli on

C sequence point explained

Extracted from comp.lang.c FAQ list, Question 3.8





The Standard states that > Between the previous and next sequence point an object shall have its stored > value modified at most once by the evaluation of an expression. Furthermore, > the prior value shall be accessed only to determine the value to be stored.

These two rather opaque sentences say several things. First, they talk about operations bounded by the previous and next sequence points; such operations usually correspond to full expressions. (In an expression statement, the next sequence point is usually at the terminating semicolon, and the previous sequence point is at the end of the previous statement. An expression may also contain intermediate sequence points, as listed above.)

The first sentence rules out both the examples

i++ * i++ and

i = i++

i has its value modified twice within the expression, i.e. between sequence points. If we were to write a similar expression which did have an internal sequence point, such as

i++ && i++ it would be well-defined, if questionably useful.


a[i] = i++ Actually, the other expressions we've been discussing are in violation of the second sentence, as well. To see why, let's first look more carefully at what the Standard is trying to allow and disallow.

Clearly, expressions like

a = b and

c = d + e which read some values and use them to write others, are well-defined and legal. Clearly, expressions like


It’s also clear that we’d like to disallow expressions like

a[i] = i++ which modify `i` and use it along the way, but not disallow expressions like

i = i + 1 which use and modify `i` but only modify it later when it's reasonably easy to ensure that the final store of the final value (into i, in this case) doesn't interfere with the earlier accesses.


a[i] = i++ is disallowed because one of the accesses of `i` (the one in `a[i]`) has nothing to do with the value which ends up being stored in `i` (which happens over in `i++`), and so there's no good way to define--either for our understanding or the compiler's --whether the access should take place before or after the incremented value is stored. Since there's no good way to define it, the Standard declares that it is undefined, and that portable programs simply must not use such constructs.

The easy way?

If you steer clear of expressions which don’t have reasonably obvious interpretations, for the most part you’ll steer clear of the undefined ones, too. (Of course, reasonably obvious means different things to different people. This section works as long as you agree that a[i] = i++ and i = i++ are not easonably obvious.)

To be a bit more precise, here are some simpler rules which, though slightly more conservative than the ones in the Standard, will help to make sure that your code is reasonably obvious and equally understandable to both the compiler and your fellow programmers:

  1. Make sure that each expression modifies at most one object. By object we mean either a simple variable, or a cell of an array, or the location pointed to by a pointer (e.g. *p). A modification is either simple assignment with the = operator, or a compound assignment with an operator like +=, -=, or *=, or an increment or decrement with ++ or -- (in either pre or post forms).

  2. If an object (as defined above) appears more than once in an expression, and is the object modified in the expression, make sure that all appearances of the object which fetch its value participate in the computation of the new value which is stored. This rule allows the expression

    c i = i + 1 because although the object i appears twice and is modified, the appearance (on the right-hand side) which fetches i’s old value is used to compute i’s new value.

  3. If you want to break rule 1, make sure that the several objects being modified are distinctly different, and try to limit yourself to two or at most three modifications, and of a style matching those of the following examples. (Also, make sure that you continue to follow rule 2 for each object modified.) The expression

    c c = *p++ is allowed under this rule, because the two objects modified (c and p) are distinct. The expression

    c *p++ = c is also allowed, because p and *p (i.e. p itself and what it points to) are both modified but are almost certainly distinct. Similarly, both

    c c = a[i++] and

    c a[i++] = c are allowed, because c, i, and a[i] are presumably all distinct. Finally, expressions like

    c *p++ = *q++ and

    c a[i++] = b[j++] in which three things are modified (p, q, and *p in the first expression, and i, j, and a[i] in the second), are allowed if all three objects are distinct, i.e. only if two different pointers p and q or two different array indices i and j are used.

  4. You may also break rule 1 or 2 as long as you interpose a defined sequence point operator between the two modifications, or between the modification and the access. The expression

    c (c = getchar()) != EOF && c != '\n' (commonly seen in a while loop while reading a line) is legal because the second access of the variable c occurs after the sequence point implied by &&. (Without the sequence point, the expression would be illegal because the access of c while comparing it to '\n' on the right does not determine the value to be stored on the left.)