Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:03:25 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it (Luigi Rizzo) Cc: phk@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: enum considered bad ? Message-ID: <199610171803.LAA06082@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199610170804.JAA05315@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> from "Luigi Rizzo" at Oct 17, 96 09:04:01 am
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> > I've noticed that "enum" is hardly ever used in C programs, is this > > because people consider it a bad idea or because they havn't really > > got the swing of it ? > > isn't it more a compatibility issue with old compilers which do not > support it ? Old compilers support enum... unless you are talking about "really old compilers". Old compilers didn't dictate option base -- enum was only guaranteed to be monotonically increasing if no assigned value was used; I have seen implementations which started at 0 and other whichstarted at 1. The real problem is probably that is is not a defined sized type. Other than the fact that it is signed (K&R requires this for its sample code), the size is undefined. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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