Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!ames!hc!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: int divided by unsigned.
Message-ID: <13958@lanl.gov>
Date: 27 Jun 89 03:13:08 GMT
References: <1549@frog.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 22

From article <1549@frog.UUCP>, by john@frog.UUCP (John Woods):
> 	main() {
> 		int a = -5;
> 		unsigned b = 1000;
> 		printf("%d\n", a /= (int)b);
> 	}
> A correct program giving desirable results.  Fancy that.

And all it requires is some non-intuitive (and undesireable) clutter
in the expression.  It would _obviously_ be better if the semantics of
the given expression were the _default_ and the present default were
the one which required the extra syntax.  That is, all the following
would be _equal_:

      a /= b, (int)a /= b, a /= (int)b, (int)a /= (int)b

and, to get the current interpretation, you should have to do: 

      (unsigned)a /= b

But, that would require C to do something in a reasonable way - so I
guess we can forget that.