Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!jade!ucbcad!ames!lll-crg!hoptoad!gnu From: gnu@hoptoad.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.std.internat Subject: Re: draft ANSI standard: are chars signed? Message-ID: <1462@hoptoad.uucp> Date: Wed, 10-Dec-86 02:53:43 EST Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1462 Posted: Wed Dec 10 02:53:43 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 14-Dec-86 04:08:08 EST References: <1382@hoptoad.uucp> <8322@lll-crg.ARpA> <783@nscpdc.NSC.COM> Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 21 Xref: linus comp.lang.c:304 comp.std.internat:38 In article <783@nscpdc.NSC.COM>, joemu@nscpdc.NSC.COM (Joe Mueller) writes: > The committee wanted to "fix" the question of signedness of a char but > couldn't arrive at an acceptable compromise. We thought about having > chars be signed and unsigned chars unsigned but we were afraid it would > break too much code that depended on chars being unsigned. We ended up > adopting the compromise of: > char - signed or unsigned, implementation defined > unsigned char > signed char Of course, this compromise breaks all the code that depends on chars being EITHER signed OR unsigned! To be portable and "strictly conforming", you can't depend on =chars having signs= or =chars having no signs=, you just can't depend. I would rather they had broken half the code that makes assumptions, rather than all of it. -- John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu jgilmore@lll-crg.arpa Call +1 800 854 7179 or +1 714 540 9870 and order X3.159-198x (ANSI C) for $65. Then spend two weeks reading it and weeping. THEN send in formal comments!