Matti Aarnio writes:
> On Sun, Jun 11, 2000 at 04:30:42PM +0100, Philip Blundell wrote:
> > - char fixkey, fixvel; /* fixed key, velocity */
> > + signed char fixkey, fixvel; /* fixed key, velocity */
>
> Philip, just curious, which CPU has its 'char' type
> defaulted to unsigned ?
>
> These days most systems seem to run with 'char' == 'signed char',
> while many older systems were 'char' == 'unsigned char'.
> (I still remember that Sun changed the default way way back at
> SunOS systems, and it caused some of my code to break back then.
> A great educational experience that one..)
Many ARM processors are more efficient with unsigned chars (it saves
two instructions per load of a signed char to promote the char to a
32-bit quantity required for signed arithmetic).
There are other current architectures which this is also a win.
IMHO not specifing signed/unsignedness where it matters is a sign
of bad programming practise, especially with code which is meant to
be portable.
_____
|_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
| | Russell King rmk@arm.linux.org.uk --- ---
| | | | http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/aboutme.html / / |
| +-+-+ --- -+-
/ | THE developer of ARM Linux |+| /|\
/ | | | --- |
+-+-+ ------------------------------------------------- /\\\ |
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