Re: NO 64 bit signed type available

Henrik Nordstrom <hno@marasystems.com> writes:

> On Friday 18 October 2002 01.10, Robert Collins wrote:
>
> > > Hmm... and what about a lot of old ancient compilers used on a
> > > number of ancient unix platforms ?
> >
> > Well, this is a harder question. Can we meaningfully support such
> > platforms? We're pushing at the limits of select and poll already.
> > Perhaps someone can write a int64_t type library for such
> > platforms?
>
> Well.. do we really need to use explicit bit size integers outside
> things like NTLM other than to limit the size (i.e 8/16 bits types).

I'd drop everything else.
Having _known_ integer sizes (and bounds) is imo vital. To avoid overflows,
and to better pack structures all over the place.
So, if it were up to me, every integer type save (u_?|)int(8|16|32|64)_t
would be deprecated.

> For anything dealing with file/data sizes size_t is a good choice, and
> will be 64 bits on platforms where it is meaningful..
>
> Anyway, if we find that we need 64 bit types and it turns out there is
> users who can't support them then adding a 64 bit integer emulation
> library is no big deal.

gcc does that, albeit (at least in L. Torvalds' opinion) poorly.

-- 
	kinkie (kinkie-ml [at] libero [dot] it)
	Random fortune, unrelated to the message:
Life is like bein' on a mule team.  Unless you're the lead mule, all the
scenery looks about the same.