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From: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The use of unsigned int
Keywords: unsigned int, C
Message-ID: <3378@unisoft.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 91 00:55:18 GMT
References: <1255@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM>
Reply-To: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf)
Organization: Foo Bar and Grill
Lines: 21

In article <1255@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM> paul@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM (Paul Siu) writes:
>The most commonly use, and commonly returned type in C is probably int.  
>In some cases, wouldn't it be more appropriate if unsigned int was used
>instead, such as when you are indexing an array, or returning a length?

I've had occasion to use a signed int as an array index before; I don't
think it's that uncommon.  Unsigned ints are warranted in certain places,
but int seems to be more versatile (you don't have to muck about with
whichever value a failed system call returns).  Also, as has been pointed out,
the difference between signed and unsigned int on a two's-complement
machine (most are these days) is purely semantic.

>Paul Siu
>paul@tredysvr.tredydev.unisys.com


-- 
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