Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!richard From: richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Style guides and portability Message-ID: <3941@skye.ed.ac.uk> Date: 15 Jan 91 15:02:51 GMT References: <116@thor.UUCP> <14858@smoke.brl.mil> Reply-To: richard@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland Lines: 18 >>where it is important that the number of bits == 32, or ... >But there is no guarantee that there will BE such an integral type! True. But at least it tells you that the programmer wrote the code on the assumption that there would be. Of course, most code has no need of such assumptions, but sometimes the need for efficiency outweighs the need for portability. In general, I would say it was better to typedef a name for the specific purpose, with a comment saying that it must be 32 bits. -- Richard -- Richard Tobin, JANET: R.Tobin@uk.ac.ed AI Applications Institute, ARPA: R.Tobin%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Edinburgh University. UUCP: ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin