Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!cartan!ucbcad!ames!cit-vax!news From: news@cit-vax.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.std.internat Subject: Re: draft ANSI standard: are chars signed? Message-ID: <1320@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Date: Wed, 10-Dec-86 04:56:32 EST Article-I.D.: cit-vax.1320 Posted: Wed Dec 10 04:56:32 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 14-Dec-86 04:15:21 EST References: <1382@hoptoad.uucp> <8322@lll-crg.ARpA> <783@nscpdc.NSC.COM> <1462@hoptoad.uucp> Reply-To: jon@cit-vax.UUCP (Jon Leech) Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 35 Xref: linus comp.lang.c:305 comp.std.internat:39 Organization : California Institute of Technology Keywords: From: jon@oddhack.Caltech.Edu (Jon Leech) Path: oddhack!jon In article <1462@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >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. I fail to see how this choice 'breaks' ANY code. It is not possible to write portable code with either of the above assumptions now. It will not be possible under ANSI - but it will then be possible to explicitly choose signed chars if you want. What broke? If you are saying ANSI should have chosen chars to always be signed or unsigned just so currently broken code will become non-broken, I don't agree with the complaint. Who knows how much inefficiency may result? -- Jon Leech (jon@csvax.caltech.edu || ...seismo!cit-vax!jon) Caltech Computer Science Graphics Group __@/