Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 SMI; site sun.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!decwrl!sun!gnu From: gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: Mixing char and int types as parameters in portable (summary). Message-ID: <664@sun.uucp> Date: Wed, 21-Mar-84 04:47:29 EST Article-I.D.: sun.664 Posted: Wed Mar 21 04:47:29 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 22-Mar-84 01:28:38 EST References: <5743@mcvax.UUCP> <2753@brl-vgr.ARPA> Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 15 > Therefore it makes little sense to declare the formal parameters of a > function to be type char or float, since actual arguments never will be. I disagree. For example, a char or short can be multiplied much faster on a 68000 than a (32-bit) int or long. Also, if the parameter is declared to be a char, one-byte compares can be done on it, rather than 4-byte compares. Since the "conversion" from an int to a char or short costs nothing, but gains something, you might as well just say what you mean and call it a char. This is NOT true for IEEE float, since the float format and the double format have different bit configurations (more exponent bits in the doubles). Conversion to float will cost, but then computation can be cheaper, so it's a tradeoff. (Our C compiler has a switch to generate float expressions in float rather than double, to save time.)