CodeSOD: intToString

Krzysztof found themselves staring at a C++ function called intToString. And staring. And then realized that the function makes more sense if you don't look at the name. Let's take a peek:

String intToString(u8* p_param, int p_length) {int i;int j=0;for(i=0; i < p_length; i++){j = p_param[i];if(j==97 || j==98 || j==99 || j==100 || j==101 || j==102 || j==103 || j==104 ||j==105 || j==106 || j==107 || j==108 || j==109 || j==110 || j==111 || j==112 ||j==113 || j==114 || j==115 || j==116 || j==117 || j==118 || j==119 || j==120 ||j==121 || j==122){p_param[i] = j-32;}if(!isprint((char)p_param[i]))p_param[i] = 0;}string s((char*) p_param);return s;}

So, intToString takes a buffer of bytes and a length for the buffer, and at a glance, you'd just assume that someone is reinventing atoi. We go into the loop, and check each character, and someone has opted to unroll a basic range comparison into a long series of or operations. Which is dumb, but... wait a second. ASCII character 97... we subtract 32...

This function isn't an intToString function. It's a "toUpper function. Also an existing function that didn't need to be reinvented, also a case where we didn't need to unroll the if comparison so hard.

It's also worth noting that String is a typedef for std::string, which isn't wrong but leaves us asking "why?"

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