Pimp My Code Part 1 // Coding and Stuff

inline bool IsSpecial(const char* szValue)
{
 // Returns true if this is a special value
 if (stricmp(szValue, "MySpecialValue") == 0) {
   return true;
 }

 return false;
}

I see this sort of thing all the time. For boolean functions that call boolean functions the if and return statements are usually superflous, we can use the return value of (stricmp(szValue, “MySpecialValue”) == 0) itself:

// Returns true if this is a special value
inline bool IsSpecial(const char* szValue)
{
 return (stricmp(szValue, "MySpecialValue") == 0);
}

If it were up to me I would also use a string class and keep as much of the code as possible in the string “realm” (This makes the code a lot simpler and easier to read):

// Returns true if this is a special value
inline bool IsSpecial(const string& sValue)
{
 return (sValue == "MySpecialValue");
}