On Sat, 27 Aug 2016, Will Godfrey wrote: I do not know if the compiler takes bool = int; and forces bool = 1 if int = 5 According to: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/145323/when-should-you-use-b… bool a = FALSE; a = 5; will give: error: no bool(const int&) available. So, it should not be possible to set a bool to other than 0 or 1. bool = 1; is the same as bool = (bool) 1; I do not know what (bool) 5 or (bool) int would do :) bool = int; should fail to compile (assuming c++) bool == int may should be ok bool || int and bool && int are ok. That is, 1 can be a bool value... 5 can not be a bool value and so should fail. if(value) is different. internally I think you would find it looks like: if(value != 0) So setting a bool to 1 or 0 is ok... but leaves the next person with less of a clue what is happening. Changing the 1 and 0 to true and false would make the code easier to follow. x = n + {boolean variable} is a shortcut for if({boolean variable}) { x = n + 1; } else { x = n; } Which helps someone reading the code to understand what is going on best? if the x = n + {boolean variable} is the next line after something that tells the reader {boolean value} is a bool it is ok... but what if a patch adds many lines in between. adding // y is a bool after might help. So the code will work and probably not break. The code would be easier to read using only true or false.

On Sat, 2016-08-27 at 16:49 +0100, Will Godfrey wrote: This is fine. The C/C++ standards guarantee that a bool, when converted to an integer, is 1 or 0 (the pedantically correct way of saying this depends on which standard/revision, but effectively that sums it up). It's pretty convenient/elegant at times. Personally, I exploit it when that's the case, but be more explicit if it has potential to be confusing.