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From: peter@sugar.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Long integers
Message-ID: <769@sugar.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Sep-87 16:31:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: sugar.769
Posted: Wed Sep 16 16:31:07 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Sep-87 09:19:03 EDT
References: <9266@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 35
Summary: Bzzzzzt! Are we not men, we are vaxen.

In article <9266@brl-adm.ARPA>, moss@BRL.ARPA (Gary S. Moss (SLCBR-VL-V)) writes:
> George,
> 	The format %ld is wrong when using the PRINTF family of functions.

Nope, it's right.

> The reason for this is that integer arguments are *always* widened to LONG
> when passed in to a function, so the %d format is meant for LONGS.

Integer arguments are widened to INT when passed in to a function. If you
always run on Vaxen and 68000s and the like (as you presumably have) you will
never have any problems. If you run on PDP11s and 8086s you'll get the most
amazing results.

> This
> is also true for %f.

This is true for %f, but not for %d. Probably there didn't happen to be any
performance advantage to using the longer floats on a PDP11 and this became
entrenched in the language.

> I am not certain, but pretty sure that I have gotten
> wrong behavior when using %ld in this context on certain hardware.

when either your compiler is wrong or you were really using an integer or
(more likely) a pointer and assuming it was a long. Pointers may be longs
on an 8086, but never are on a PDP11.

The Vandata version of the Whitesmiths 'C' compiler on the 8080 actually
promoted to char (i.e., didn't promote) when passing integers when you were
compiling in the tightest possible mode. This was great for small embedded
systems.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
--                 'U`      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Not seismo!soma (blush)