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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Code Generation (register byte, short...)
Message-ID: <289@l5.uucp>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 12:27:04 EST
Article-I.D.: l5.289
Posted: Wed Nov 27 12:27:04 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 00:28:25 EST
References: <29@brl-tgr.ARPA> <703@petrus.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 21

In article <703@petrus.UUCP> hammond@petrus.UUCP (Rich A. Hammond) writes:
>
>The problem is really the brain damage among UNIX hackers that  assumes
>sizeof(int) == sizeof (char *).  This is so painful to fix (for quick ports)
>that although the 68000's int should be 16 bits (the size that works best,
>fastest, ...) it is often made 32 bits.  While this avoids the pain for the
>porter, it does lead to problems for the end user (i.e. using short vs int).
>
Unless you intend to do a lot of multiplying and dividing, I can't see what
you would gain in making ints 16 bits.  You *won't* get a significantly
faster port, because you have to go through all the code and check for
(at a minimum) dereferencing null pointers, and while you are at that you
can get those as well.

A harder problem is code that assumes sizeof(int *) == sizeof(char *) 
== sizeof(struct foo *). Use lint. realise that correct code is not just code
that happens to not dump core very often on your machine. Use lint.
-- 
Laura Creighton		
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa