FA> What really freaks me is that FALSE is defined as 0, so according to
 FA> that, are the next lines true or false ?

But these functions don't return boolean information. They return something
DIFFERENT, such as a result code, or a value useful for comparison.


 FA> strcmp("hello","hello");  hardly FALSE, but it is 0.

strcmp() returns a value which determines how each string compares. 0 means
equal, < 0 means the first string is "less" then the second in
the character set being used, > 0 means the opposite.  This return value
allows sorting routines, such as qsort(), to sort strings based on that
return code.


 FA> system("wontfindme.exe");  worse than FALSE ? :)

No, it returns a system-defined return code from the operating system, or
-1 if something went wrong. Exactly what the return code means is defined
by your environment, and whatever program you're running - it has nothing
to do with C.


 FA> ..or is this just a booboo, nobody wants to change ?

Not at all a booboo. Boolean information is too limited for most uses. If
you must use a boolean string compare, then define:

#define strequal(x,y)  (strcmp(x,y)==0)

and use the macro 'strequal()' in your code.


 FA> In both cases, and in most C functions if FALSE was defined !TRUE and
 FA> TRUE was defined 0, the returned results would make more sense.

And be of far more limited use.

It would "make sense", certainly, if those functions were defined
to return values that can be used in a boolean context, but they don't.

Regards,
David

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