Reality check please: "changed", nested conditionals and states

OK, this is more than a bit frustrating so it's quite possible I am missing something dumb. I'm wanting to change states conditional on a couple of things including the presence or absence of someone sitting on my object, and it's not working. I added a couple lines of debugging code in hopes the script would tell me something useful, but it's only leaving me more confused than ever.

    changed(integer change)
    {
        if (change & CHANGED_LINK)
        {
            llMessageLinked(LINK_SET, 0, "ready", NULL_KEY);
            if (llAvatarOnSitTarget() != NULL_KEY) // if you got back on
            {
                llSay(0, "you are sitting on me");
                gAnim = "sitting"; // sets a custom sitting animation
                llRequestPermissions(llAvatarOnSitTarget(),PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION);
            }
            else if (llAvatarOnSitTarget() == NULL_KEY) // if you got off
            {
                llSay(0, "you are not sitting on me");
                llSay(0, "running = " + (string)running);
                if (running = 0)
                {
                    llSay(0, "changing states");
                    state default; // WHY IS THIS NOT HAPPENING?
                }
                else
                {
                    llSay(0, "running = " + (string)running + " and you are not sitting on me but I didn't change states for some reason");
                }
            }
        }
    }

I stand up, and here's the output:

The script dutifully reports whether or not I am sitting on it, but never changes back to the default state. "running" is a variable set elsewhere. The animation and everything else works fine. What am I missing?

Thanks for looking.

Classic Coding Mistake #4: You've got "if (running = 0)" (assignment) rather than "if (running == 0)" (comparison). I did that yesterday.

Thank you. I had a feeling I would end up simultaneously relieved and embarassed.

In other news, I believe that rounds out my own personal collection of Classic Coding Mistakes for the week. Time for a drink.

</need for this thread>

I've done the same thing in reverse (it cost me about L$200 too)... it's really embarassing when you've been coding as long as I have (or longer ) (I've been coding for over 3 years).

Oh, nobody ever stops doing it. I've been programming since I was seven and I still do it. Just one of those things.

Really, the compiler should have an option to show warnings if you have an if-condition involving an assignment... but one you can turn off, as it's useful sometimes.

Instead of writing your conditions this way:

if (running = 0)

write them the 'reverse' way:

if (0 = running)

That way the compiler picks up the assignment to a constant error, when you meant comparison to a constant.

Or a conditional that isn't inside a for(), if(), or while().