From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jun 2 22:51:23 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA06587 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:51:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from iceberg.anchorage.net. (root@iceberg.anchorage.net [207.14.72.150]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA06582 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:51:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from aak.anchorage.net (ai-132 [207.14.72.132]) by iceberg.anchorage.net. (8.6.11/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA10089 for ; Mon, 2 Jun 1997 20:48:26 -0800 Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 21:40:41 -0800 (AKDT) From: Steve Howe X-Sender: abc@aak.anchorage.net To: freebsd-hackers Subject: Re: signed/unsigned cpp In-Reply-To: <199706021529.BAA00871@labs.usn.blaze.net.au> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 3 Jun 1997, David Nugent wrote: > > It isn't only a portability issue, but also a c++ standards issue. > c++ distinguishes between these three types. Ansi c only has two > and there it *is* a portability issue as to whether char* is signed > or unsigned. This is one of the many ambiguities that c++ has the > luxury to resolve. :) i hate to carry on anything trivial ... but, having a "default signedness" seems like trouble to me. when you are writing code, you should have some intentions for a signedness. imho, c++ should've just kept 2 types of signedness and made sure one or the other was always specified - then you wouldn't have the kludge of "whatever some other compiler deems it to be". i can't imagine a worthwhile use of that. if i am using an "unsigned char *", i expect my code to use an "unsigned char *". it does not benefit any cross-compiler or any other architecture to say "no - i will use it as a signed char *". but i have been wrong before :) -------------------------------------------------------------------- E0BD7BD2 625FC4D0 2ED52811 B1A18A42 http://www.anchorage.net/~un_x --------------------------------------------------------------------