QA·C Help - 3446

	3446	The 2nd or 3rd operand of this conditional operator is an expression with possible side effects.

Side Effects

Evaluation of this conditional operator may induce side effects.

Side effects occur when an expression:

accesses a volatile object
executes an increment, decrement, assignment or compound assignment operation
performs I/O
or calls a function which does any of the above

However QA·C assumes that side effects occur whenever a function is called, unless the function has specifically been identified as being free from side effects by a #pragma statement of the form:

#pragma PRQA_NO_SIDE_EFFECTS funcname

The conditional operator is often a source of confusion. If side effects are involved, it may be wiser to use an if statement.

For example:


/*PRQA S 3198,3199,3227,3396,3408,3440,3447 ++*/

extern int fn(void);
extern int r;

extern void foo(int a, int b)
{
    r = ( a > 0 ) ? b : a++;                    /* Message 3446 */
    r = ( a > 0 ) ? fn() : b;                   /* Message 3446 */

    r = ( a++ > 0 ) ? b : (b + 1);              /* Message 3416 */
}