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From: stevesu@copper.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Supercomputer Unix decisions (really type sizes)
Message-ID: <1124@copper.TEK.COM>
Date: Sat, 13-Jun-87 18:20:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: copper.1124
Posted: Sat Jun 13 18:20:41 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Jun-87 18:37:32 EDT
References: <3659@spool.WISC.EDU> <743@geac.UUCP> <4679@columbia.UUCP> <420@elxsi.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 40
Summary: who cares if sizeof(pointer) < sizeof(long)?

In article <420@elxsi.UUCP>, len@elxsi.UUCP (Len Mills) writes:
> In article <4679@columbia.UUCP> francus@cheshire.columbia.edu.UUCP (Yoseff Francus) writes:
> >In article <743@geac.UUCP> daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Brown) writes:
> >
> >I seem to recall that when UTS first came out on the Amdahl they
> >were using 64 bits per integer.  Eventually they went back to 32
> >bits.
> 
> ELXSI went through the same scenario during our development.  We started
> out with 64-bit longs and 32-bit ints and 32-bit pointers.  This was fine,
> for a while, until folks with third-party applications code came along.
> 
> Seems that there is a LOT of code in rather large packages that runs on
> a lot of machines, all of which have pointers and longs of the same number
> of bits.                                          ^^^^^
> 
> Of course, we changed.  Nowadays int, long, and pointer all are 32-bits
> and there is a new, absolutely non-portable thingy called a long long
> which is 64-bits. Sigh.

Wait a minute.  I thought that the VAX-induced portability
problems were those caused by assuming that ints and _l_o_n_gs
(and time_t's, etc.) were the same size.  Who said anything about
pointers?  A lot of people believe that K&R say that
sizeof(pointer) == sizeof(int), whereas the true statement is
that sizeof(pointer) <= sizeof(an integral type).  Code that
casts pointers to integers and back can therefore be made more
portable (to machines with sizeof(int) < sizeof(pointer) <= sizeof(long))
by casting the pointers to longs.  That shouldn't cause any
problems, other than the possibility of wasting a bit of space
and time on machines where sizeof(int) == sizeof(pointer) < sizeof(long).
You don't have to look at 64-bit supercomputers to find one with
this property--just consider the pdp11.

Have the compounded mistakes and confusion really reached the
point where paranoid people must make sizeof(int) == sizeof(long),
thus throwing away a perfectly good and useful type?

                                           Steve Summit
                                           stevesu@copper.tek.com