this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2025
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I think it's actually quite elegant. No matter what it has to skip over argument 0 which will be the executable name
echo.If the subtraction was removed and the loop changed to
<, it would then need to do an addition or subtraction inside the loop to check if it's the last argument.The real question might be whether the compiler was smart enough to change
var++andvar--into++varand--varwhen the initial values aren't needed.As compiler optimisations go, it's a fairly obvious one, but it was 1974 and putting checks like that in the compiler would increase its size and slow it down when both space and time were at a premium.
Well, good news, the source code is right there. Someone can go check (it probably won't be me)
I was going to guess the same regarding the time period.
Or they just drop the =