torture bill summed up in C

[cellio]

From patrissimo, who got it from others:

It occurs to me now that the whole 94-page bill really amounts to a common, one-character programming error.

if (person = terrorist) {
   punish_severely();
   } else {
     exit(-1);
   }

Comments

Uh, I don't get it...

[rob-of-unspace.livejournal.com]

There's obviously something wrong with that, based on the setup, but I don't see it. It has been a while since I've C'd, and most of that was C++. Help for the clueless?

Re: Uh, I don't get it...

[cellio]

What's the equality operator (in C or C++ or Java)?

Re: Uh, I don't get it...

[goljerp]

Actually, while I saw the bug (I'm a Java person, not so much C/C++), in Java I think the compiler would complain about the code as written. Unfortunately, I think the current supreme court is much more likely to let that pass than the Java compier.