Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!bloom-beacon!gatech!ncar!oddjob!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!mmm!ntmtka!mike
From: mike@ntmtka.Ntmtka.MN.ORG (Mike Tietel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Absolute size of 'short'
Summary: Don't make assumptions
Keywords: unsigned wrap-around
Message-ID: <1335@ntmtka.Ntmtka.MN.ORG>
Date: 3 Aug 88 19:47:50 GMT
References: <214@ISIDAPS5.UUCP>
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc., Minnetonka, MN
Lines: 15

In article <214@ISIDAPS5.UUCP>, mike@ISIDAPS5.UUCP (Mike Maloney) writes:
> Is the size of a (signed or unsigned) short integer guarenteed to
> be two bytes?  ...

No.  All that can be guarenteed is that:
     (sizeof short) <= (sizeof int) <= (sizeof long)

Therefore, there are no guarentees about the absolute size of a short.
Even under two different compiler implementations for the same hardware,
the sizes might be different.

mike tietel
-- 
mike@ntmtka.mn.org
UUCP: ...!amdahl!bungia!ntmtka!mike