[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Compaq Tru64 Unix Alpha platform - Building freeciv

[Raimar Falke <hawk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 05:01:16AM -0300, Mark Metson wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 15 May 2002, Raimar Falke wrote:
> 
> > You just not have enough types:
> >  8 bit - char
> >  16 bit - short int
> >  32 bit - int
> >  64 bit - long int
> >  128 bit - long long int
> > 
> > So if you make int now 64 bit you can decide whether short int is 16
> > bit or 32 bit. But you loose one.
> 
> Huh? Shouldn't that be int = word size of processor, short int = maybe 
> about half that size or so, and long int = about twice that size; with 
> char being about 2 bytes or so in most character sets these days albeit 
> ascii and ebcdic only need 8 bits? I can understand char staying at only 
> one byte despite many newfangled character-sets using 2 bytes but if you 
> want types that are a specific number of bits why not instead of short and 
> long, which vary depending on the processor, use int32, int16, int1024 etc 
> etc?
> 
> Or use more ajectives, medium long, medium short, slightly long, very 
> long, exceedinly long, tiny, miniscule, vast, interminable, huge, 
> humongous...
> 
> No, sorry, I dont think the excuse you provided above is at all 
> compelling. I thought short int meant whatever size that processor find 
> convenient that is approximatly half its word width, int is a processor 
> word, long is two processor words.

See <http://www.opengroup.org/public/tech/aspen/lp64_wp.htm> for a
discussion about this.

        Raimar

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