Time for 64-bit longs?

sherm at elxsi.UUCP sherm at elxsi.UUCP
Tue Feb 10 13:36:16 AEST 1987


In article <1643 at cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> jon at oddhack.UUCP (Jon Leech) writes:
>	I don't think this is correct. All K&R says about it is
>that 'short is no longer than long' (pg 34 sec 2.2). Why not have
>short=16 bits, int=32 bits, long=64 bits?
>
>    -- Jon Leech (jon at csvax.caltech.edu || ...seismo!cit-vax!jon)
>    Caltech Computer Science Graphics Group

When we began our first Unix port to the ELXSI we tried your suggestion
and found that it was actually *rare* to find a program that would still
work with 64-bit longs.  

After repeatedly bashing our heads against horrible debugging problems in 
third-party's 100,000 line applications we finally saw the light and 
switched to a 32-bit long and a 64-bit long long.

Moral arguments aside, we're stuck with int==long.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Sherman
...!{sun|styx}!elxsi!sherm



More information about the Comp.unix.wizards mailing list