23 Jun 96 20:23, andrew clarke wrote to Paul Edwards:

 >> Going x=*y;

 >> is ambiguous because there used to be a meaning to that of

 >> x *= y;

 >> I think.

 > That gnu indent error has always puzzled me.  Certainly the code looks 

From "The IBM PC Programmer's Guide To C" by Matthew Probert
(CGUIDE3.ZIP, hatched into the PDNCEE file distribution echo recently):

  "Differences Between the Various Versions of C

  The original C (prior to the definitive book by K&R) defined the
  combination assignment operators (eg: +=, *=, etc.) backwards (ie: they
  were written =+, =*, etc.).  This caused terrible confusion when a
  statement such as

   x=-y;
  was compiled - it could have meant

   x = x - y;
  or

   x = (-y);
  Ritchie soon spotted this ambiguity and changed the language to have
  these operators written in the now-familiar manner (+=, *=, etc.)."

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