Re: [HACKERS] Re: your mail

On Thu, 11 Feb 1999, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
> > should use: signed or unsigned chars, anyone has an idea?
>
> In all my own code, I always set the compiler option to make char an
> unsigned type. For portability I like to know that the behaviour
> won't change as long as I carry over my compiler options. I like
> that way better than casting since I don't get conflict warnings
> for sending unsigned (or signed) char to library functions. Remember,
> char, signed char and unsigned char are 3 distinct types even though
> char has to behave exactly like one of the other two. Setting it up on
> the compiler command line gets around that.
>
> As for signed vs. unsigned, I don't think it matters that much. I chose
> unsigned since I never do signed arithmetic on char and if I ever did I
> would like to have the extra keywork to draw attention to it.

That is what I think of, and what I usually use - tweak compiler options
to unsigned char.
So, my conclusion - reject the patch and teach people to change compiler
options.

Oleg.
----
Oleg Broytmann http://members.xoom.com/phd2/ phd2(at)earthling(dot)net
Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.