CWE-482: Comparing instead of Assigning
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Edit Custom FilterThe code uses an operator for comparison when the intention was to perform an assignment.
In many languages, the compare statement is very close in appearance to the assignment statement; they are often confused.
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![]() Languages C (Undetermined Prevalence) C++ (Undetermined Prevalence) Example 1 The following example demonstrates the weakness. (bad code)
Example Language: Java
void called(int foo) {
foo==1; }if (foo==1) System.out.println("foo\n"); int main() { called(2); return 0; Example 2 The following C/C++ example shows a simple implementation of a stack that includes methods for adding and removing integer values from the stack. The example uses pointers to add and remove integer values to the stack array variable. (bad code)
Example Language: C
#define SIZE 50
int *tos, *p1, stack[SIZE]; void push(int i) { p1++;
if(p1==(tos+SIZE)) { // Print stack overflow error message and exit *p1 == i; int pop(void) { if(p1==tos) {
// Print stack underflow error message and exit p1--; return *(p1+1); int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { // initialize tos and p1 to point to the top of stack tos = stack; p1 = stack; // code to add and remove items from stack ... return 0; The push method includes an expression to assign the integer value to the location in the stack pointed to by the pointer variable. However, this expression uses the comparison operator "==" rather than the assignment operator "=". The result of using the comparison operator instead of the assignment operator causes erroneous values to be entered into the stack and can cause unexpected results.
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