When is a statement an expression?

[Sho Kuwamoto]

In article <1043 at itivax.iti.org> scs at vax3.iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes:
<
<A friend was over tonight and we were talking over wierd C code
<we have written.  [...]
<
<main()
<{
<	int a = 0 ;
<
<	a = if ( a == 1 )
<		12 ;
<	else
<		14 ;
<	printf( "Value of a is %d\n", a ) ;
<}
Perhaps someone else can explain this more technically, but it seems
to me that...

1) "if" is a branching operation.  It cannot be assigned to an lvalue.
2) "12;" cannot be executed.  It is not a legal expression.

This, however, should work:

a = (a==1)?12:14;

-Sho