Autzoo.1511 net.bugs.v7 utcsrgv!utzoo!henry Thu Mar 25 22:46:09 1982 (unsigned)char again I should have been clearer about a couple of points in my recent notes about (unsigned)c in net.bugs.v7. The interpretation of casts as semantically equivalent to assignment to a temporary is straight from Dennis Ritchie (as of Santa Monica USENIX two months ago) and is therefore the Official Word. To my mind this supersedes Hans Spiller's paper. Dennis also does not seem to agree with Hans's idea of always making char signed on all machines; what Dennis said in my presence was about what I'd always thought his view was, i.e the signed nature of char on the 11 is a lamentable historical accident that should not be blindly imitated. [Dennis, I apologize if I am misrepresenting your views. I'm working from notes made in the evening about conversations during the day.] Dennis was not sure whether the definitive interpretation of casts had made it into the 3.0 compiler. Hans's paper indicates it didn't. Who's right? I dunno. Making casts systematically equivalent to assignment seems a good idea to me; it gives them an exact definition for the first time and eliminates needing two sets of conversion rules. I do wish my compiler had unsigned char, though. Whether char should be considered signed in future implementations is less clear. My own view is that they ought to have been unsigned from the beginning, and given that they weren't, any code which relies on EITHER interpretation is wrong and unportable. If there is interest in further discussion of this, please mail to me and I'll summarize for the network. Henry Spencer decvax!utzoo!henry ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.