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From: ark@alice.att.com (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: getchar and EOF (was: One more point regarding = and == (more flamage))
Message-ID: <20175@alice.att.com>
Date: 7 Apr 91 17:25:08 GMT
References: <3555@inews.intel.com> <3465@litchi.bbn.com> <1991Apr4.215605.2801@syssoft.com> <1991Apr7.064003.8552@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: ark@alice.UUCP ()
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 16

In article <1991Apr7.064003.8552@athena.mit.edu> scs@adam.mit.edu writes:

> getchar can return any char value, plus the single, "out of band"
> value EOF [note 1].  Obviously, a variable of type char cannot
> hold any-char-value-or-EOF, so getchar() is specified to return,
> and any variable used to hold its return value must be declared
> as, an int.

Well, almost right.

It returns a non-negative integer or EOF.  If you are on a machine
where chars are naturally signed, getchar will happily return values
that are incapable of comparing equal to any char and are not EOF.
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@europa.att.com