Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Long Chars
Message-ID: <7546@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 25 Mar 88 16:21:36 GMT
References: <7447@brl-smoke.ARPA> <439@splut.UUCP> <8803250401.AA01184@champlain.dgp.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 8

In article <8803250401.AA01184@champlain.dgp.toronto.edu> flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>Why do you need to make sizeof(char) == 2 just to make chars 16 bits?
>Make chars 16 bits, keep sizeof(char) == 1, ...

The idea is that you not only need to handle fat chars, you also
have applications that need to handle smaller objects (bytes, or
bits).  Therefore there would have to be some object type smaller
than a char (e.g. a "short char").