Using true and false in C

Question

As far as I can see there are 3 ways to use booleans in c

1. with the bool type, from then using true and false
2. defining using preprocessor #defin

Answer 1

I prefer to use

#define FALSE (0!=0) 
#define TRUE  (0==0)

or directly in the code

if (flag == (0==0)) { ... }

The compiler will take care of that. I use a lot of languages and having to remember that FALSE is 0 bothers me a lot; but if I have to, I usually think about that string loop

do { ... } while (*ptr);

and that leads me to see that FALSE is 0

Answer 2

With the stdbool.h defined bool type, problems arise when you need to move code from a newer compiler that supports the bool type to an older compiler. This could happen in an embedded programming environment when you move to a new architecture with a C compiler based on an older version of the spec.

In summation, I would stick with the macros when portability matters. Otherwise, do what others recommend and use the bulit in type.

Answer 3

Whichever of the three you go with, compare your variables against FALSE, or false.

Historically it is a bad idea to compare anything to true (1) in c or c++. Only false is guaranteed to be zero (0). True is any other value.   Many compiler vendors have these definitions somewhere in their headers.  

#define TRUE 1
#define FALSE 0

This has led too many people down the garden path.   Many library functions besides chartype return nonzero values not equal to 1 on success. There is a great deal of legacy code out there with the same behavior.