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From: minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: long vs. int vs. short guidelines (especially for wizards!!)
Message-ID: <435@decvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Apr-84 19:41:03 EST
Article-I.D.: decvax.435
Posted: Fri Apr 13 19:41:03 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Apr-84 09:29:18 EST
References: <253@unisoft.UUCP>
Organization: DEC UNIX Engineering Group
Lines: 26

Here are the int/short/long guidelines that we used in a fairly large
product (DECtalk):

Storage allocation (globals and statics) always uses the following
quantities:

char		8-bit maximum, contains a value.
FLAG		Contains only TRUE/FALSE (#defined as char)
INT_16		int that can be stored in a pdp-11 short
INT_32		int that reqires more than a pdp-11 short

Function formal parameters and auto's may use "int" if the argument
was passed as char, int, or INT_16 and the value is expressable
as a pdp-11 short.  This allows the compiler to generate
efficient code for "normal" situations.

The definition of INT_16 and INT_32 is set by architecture-specific
typedef's in a header file.

Martin Minow
decvax!minow