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From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Standard int sizes
Message-ID: <6451@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Sun, 12-Apr-87 22:56:11 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.6451
Posted: Sun Apr 12 22:56:11 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Apr-87 17:37:28 EST
References: <6759@brl-adm.ARPA> <230@ems.UUCP> <567@csun.UUCP> <103@asi.UUCP>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 36
In-reply-to: metro@asi.UUCP's message of 12 Apr 87 17:07:05 GMT

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.4 of Mon Mar 23 1987 on bu-cs (berkeley-unix)



From: metro@asi.UUCP (Metro T. Sauper)
>Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to specify the size of an integer
>variable.  Perhaps a method like the one used in IBM's fortran 66 compiler.
>It was actually an IBM extension to the language i believe.
>
>	int*4	value1;			/* 4 byte integer */
>	int*2	value2;			/* 2 byte integer */
>	int*1	value3;			/* 1 byte integer */

Hey, why not go whole hog (pun intended) and go for the PL/I solution?

	declare foo fixed bin(31);
	declare goo fixed bin(15);
	declare moo packed decimal (17,3);

The numbers are BITs, can't get finer tuned control than that on most
systems!

The problem with your suggestion is that it only works if the machine
you use has a reasonable notion of a byte (that is, *4 WHATs?) A Byte
is not standardized and it's not at all obvious that an integral number
of them fit in a word (the PDP-10 would need int*4.5, the S1 uses 9-bit
bytes as I remember.)

The problem with my solution is that it leads to software anarchy.

The purpose of compilers is not necessarily to provide as many choices
as possible. That's the purpose of marketing departments.  Better to
try to provide some clean leadership rather than a zillion choices.

No, the issue is how to come up with abstracted constructs that
can be mapped reasonably portably to a lot, if not all, architectures.
Not more rope to shoot yourself in the foot with (?!)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University