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cescapingkernighan-and-ritchiekr-c

K and R exercise 1-24

I am doing programs in The C Programming Language by Kernighan and Ritchie.

I am currently at exercise 1-24 that says:

Write a program to check a C Program for rudimentary syntax errors like unbalanced parentheses, brackets and braces. Don't forget about quotes, both single and double, escape sequences, and comments.

I have done everything well... But I am not getting how escape sequences would affect these parentheses, brackets and braces?

Why did they warned about escape sequences?

Solution

  • In "\"", there are three double quote characters, but still it's a valid string literal. The middle " is escaped, meaning the outer two balance each other. Similarly, '\'' is a valid character literal.

    Parentheses, brackets and braces are not affected, unless of course they appear in a string literal that you don't parse correctly because of an escaped quote.