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From: ballou@brahms.Berkeley.EDU (Kenneth R. Ballou)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: (unsigned)-1
Message-ID: <567@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 16-Dec-86 20:16:16 EST
Article-I.D.: cartan.567
Posted: Tue Dec 16 20:16:16 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 21:58:30 EST
References: <1382@hoptoad.uucp> <8322@lll-crg.ARpA>
Sender: daemon@cartan.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: ballou@brahms.Berkeley.EDU (Kenneth R. Ballou)
Organization: Math Dept. UC Berkeley
Lines: 19

In article <5460@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) writes:
>In article <559@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> ballou@brahms (Kenneth R. Ballou) writes:
>>Actually, I think (unsigned) -1 does have to give you a bit pattern of
>>all 1's.
>
>It can't, on a one's-complement machine.  -1 is $FFFFFFFE or something
>similar on these.

	So what?  The given argument does NOT depend on how -1 is repre-
sented as a signed integer.  Point 1 demonstrated that unsigned integers
*MUST* be stored in straight binary notation.  Keep in mind that casts do
not say "treat this bit pattern as though it were this new type", but rather
that they may indeed cause changes to the representation of the quantity
being converted, as has been pointed out quite often in recent discussion.
--------
Kenneth R. Ballou			ARPA:  ballou@brahms
Department of Mathematics		UUCP:  ...!ucbvax!brahms!ballou
University of California
Berkeley, California  94720