Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: dead code, brain dead lilbrary
Message-ID: <10310@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 19 Feb 90 07:35:12 GMT
References: <1990Feb14.204332.24800@caen.engin.umich.edu> <20062@bellcore.bellcore.com> <10294@hoptoad.uucp> <2971@draken.nada.kth.se>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 30

In article <10294@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>>The proper way to write atoi on the Macintosh is:
>>int atoi(StringPtr s) { long i; StringToNum(s, &i); return i; }
> ~~~                     ~~~~                        ~~~~~~~~

In article <2971@draken.nada.kth.se> d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) writes:
>Any sane compiler would complain. If you reurn a long, the
>function should be declared long. If you use int, you're wide
>open for all kinds of incompatibilities. Int is intended only
>for holding "a small integer value", and you can never assume
>it can take a value higher than 32767. (Look in the standard)

Right, but atoi is explicitly defined in the C standard as returning
an int (at least in K&R), so you can't change that.  Basically, what
you'll get is an incorrect result if you pass in a string representing
a number that's too big for an int, which is what will happen with
*any* atoi, not just this one.

My point, anyway, was not that you should do this.  You should use
StringToNum as is.  However, if you have a bunch of code lying around
that uses atoi and it's too much trouble to convert, then you should
define the routine as above -- with, if the compiler demands it, an
(int) conversion on the return statement.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

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