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From: metro@asi.UUCP (Metro T. Sauper)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Signed Chars - What Foolishness Revisited!
Message-ID: <26@asi.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Nov-86 10:11:30 EST
Article-I.D.: asi.26
Posted: Wed Nov  5 10:11:30 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Nov-86 22:41:11 EST
References: <8776@duke.duke.UUCP>
Organization: Assessment Systems, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
Lines: 23
Summary: isascii() && signed.
Xref: mnetor net.lang.c:6284 net.micro.pc:7538


I would just like to point out that there are actually two issues which
are being argued.  They are actually two different topics.

1.  Should characters be signed or unsigned by default.

2.  Should the character type macros/subroutines support all possible
    values of type char.

The first question is compiler related, the second is library related.

My own preferences follows:

1.  Since the "c" language has an "unsigned" modifier, and not a "signed"
    modifier, I would much rather have a signed character by default and
    be able to define it to be "unsigned char" if needs be.

2.  The ctype routines are trivial at best, and with all the effort put
    to arguing which way they should work, you could have rewritten them
    to do whatever you would like them to do.

Metro T. Sauper, Jr.
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