Long Chars

[Jay Maynard]

>From article <7447 at brl-smoke.ARPA>, by gwyn at brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ):
> [...] Its only problem is that a fair amount of code has been
> written dependent on the assumption that sizeof(char)==1, although
> some programmers have been careful not to assume that all along. 

My initial knee-jerk reaction to this was "Hey, wait a minute!
sizeof(char) is defined to be 1!" Before I made a fool of myself on the
net (wouldn't be the first time...:-), though, I picked up the copy of
K&R that my recent desk-cleaning revealed. Sure enough, section 7.2, at
the top of page 188 in my copy, says:
"A _byte_ is undefined in the language except in terms of the value of
sizeof. However, IN ALL EXISTING IMPLEMENTATIONS a byte is the space
required to hold a char." (Emphasis added.)

I don't know how much existing code this would break (though I'd bet
there would be quite a bit of it). It does mean that I, too, will be
careful not to make that assumption...

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC...>splut!< | GEnie: JAYMAYNARD  CI$: 71036,1603
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Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
The opinions herein are shared by none of my cats, much less anyone else.