Uses of "short" ?

[Guy Harris]

> Can someone suggest a good reference (or references) for developing
> good portable code?  We are writing code that will eventually be used
> on machines other than our current 750 Vax running 4.2, and I would
> like to make sure we won't have to spend time rewriting code.

No, but I think Harbison and Steele mentions some things in passing.
Laura Creighton is thinking of writing such a book.  Until it comes out,
here are some rules:

	Rule 1.  Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 2.  Be careful about using "int".
	Rule 3.  Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 4.  Be careful about declaring functions which return
		 things other than "int", like "long" or pointers.
	Rule 5.  Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 6.  There is NO rule 6.
	Rule 7.  Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 8.  Be careful about casting values to their proper type
		 when passing them as arguments - if a routine expects
		 a "long", or a pointer to a particular type, make sure
		 it gets it.  For instance, never pass 0 or NULL if the
		 routine expects a pointer - *always* cast it to a pointer
		 of the appropriate type.
	Rule 9.  Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 10. Never ever ever ever ever assume that you can dereference
		 a pointer which may be null.
	Rule 11. Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 12. Never assume that the bytes of a word or a longword are
		 in a particular order.
	Rule 13. Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 14. Never assume that "char" is signed.
	Rule 15. Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 16. Never assume that you can turn a "char *" which points
		 into the middle of a word or longword into a "short *",
		 "int *", or "long *" and use the pointer in question;
		 VAXes don't impose boundary alignment restrictions, but
		 lots and lots of other machines do.
	Rule 17. Run your code through "lint".
	Rule 18. Never assume what the padding between structure members
		 is - it's machine-dependent.
	Rule 19. Run your code through "lint".

	Guy Harris