Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!claris!apple!dan
From: dan@Apple.COM (Dan Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: I thought I knew C, but...
Message-ID: <11327@apple.Apple.Com>
Date: 31 May 88 02:32:32 GMT
References: <341STORKEL@RICE>
Reply-To: dan@apple.UUCP (Dan Allen)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 18

The difference between double quotes and single quotes in C is that
double quotes create a zero-terminated string whereas single quotes
specify a literal.

It just so happens that in MPW C, literals can be anywhere from 1 to 4
characters in length, as four characters or bytes can fit in a longint.

Using four character literals is very important on the Macintosh because
of resource types, for example.  ResType is a four char literal stored
in a longint.

So anytime a file type or file creator or resource type is used on the
Mac, it is stored in a longint.  Thus using 'TEXT' is proper and "TEXT"
is wrong, in C.

Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer