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To: Tim Kientzle <tim@kientzle.com>
Subject: Re: how to kernel printf a int64_t?
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From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
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--------

>> We've always used the PRIxxx types when coding for both 32/64 platforms,
>> but it would have been really nice to have a standard way for time_t.
>> Something like PRItt

That road leads to madness, because now both the reader and the writer
needs to remember what the PRIxx is for inode_t, socklen_t and so on.

In no time you've run out of 'xx' and some camelCaseContrarian will
start using PRI_inode_t "for readability" and... ARGH!

Casting to [u]intmax_t and using %j is horrible, but not nearly as
horrible as any other currently available option.

The *right* solution, could only exist if ISO-C had consisted of
actual C programmers:  A varargs definition which transferred both
argument and it's type, so that printf wouldn't need any size
integers at all, but could tell by itself.

The resulting increase in code safety and robustness alone would
make this worth the effort to implement.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.