draft ANSI standard: one change that would *really* help Europe

[Joe Mueller]

In article <1715 at batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, braner at batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (braner) writes:
> 
> I suggest that the standard require:
> 
> 	'short' to be at least 8 bits,
> 
> 	'int' to be at least 16 bits (but 32 bits NOT promised!),
> 
> 	'long' to be at least 32 bits and long enough to hold a pointer.
> 
> These requirements, being MINIMUM sizes, would only guarantee that a
> program which assumes them would work everywhere.  But note: the
> assumption that (unsigned shorts) 0200 + 0200 == 0 is NOT legal,
> since it assumes the size is NO MORE than 8 bits!


The standard already does this, on pp 173 of the Oct. 1 1986 draft:
#define CHAR_BIT	8
#define INT_MAX		32767
#define INT_MIN		-32767
#define LONG_MAX	2147483647
#define LONG_MIN	-2147483647

This gives you the minimum sizes you ask for.

						Joe Mueller
						...!nsc!nscpdc!joemu