Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Whose code should we break? ( was Re: 64 bit C )
Message-ID: <5768:Feb2020:29:0091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 20 Feb 91 20:29:00 GMT
References: <65469@brunix.UUCP> <11285@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1991Feb20.050525.6515@kithrup.COM>
Organization: IR
Lines: 16

In article <1991Feb20.050525.6515@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
  [ criticizing the statement that a size_t can hold a pointer safely ]
> size_t is an integral type *big enough to hold the size of any single
> object*.  On a '286, for example, with a 16Mb address space, size_t should
> be int, not long.

Well, no, there's no reason that it should be an int. What's important
is that it *could* be an int, and it doesn't have to be big enough to
hold a pointer.

I find it strange that the standard insisted that some integral type be
big enough for a pointer. That rule is entirely useless without a way to
figure out what the integral type is. Why did ANSI restrict the
implementor without giving the programmer anything in return?

---Dan