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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:15:25 -0600
Message-ID: <4F37049C.2FEC@mindspring.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2012 19:15:24 -0500
From: pete <pfiland@mindspring.com>
Reply-To: pfiland@mindspring.com
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Subject: Re: return -1 using size_t???
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Robert Hayes wrote:
> 
> On Feb 11, 2:07 pm, Eric Sosman <esos...@ieee-dot-org.invalid> wrote:
> > On 2/11/2012 2:21 PM, Robert wrote:
> > > I have read that size_t can hold an unsigned int.
> > > I have been playing
> > > with using size_t as a return value and I am not sure I should. 

> Thank you for the clear explanation.  I will not use a size_t to hold
> a negative number.

I *would* use ((size_t)-1) as a return value
to indicate an extraordinary condition,
*if* there was no possibility 
that that value might be returned otherwise.

The index of the last element 
of an array with ((size_t)-1) elements, is ((size_t)-2).
So, if a function was supposed to return the
index number of an array element,
a return value of ((size_t)-1) could be used
to indicate a problem.

-- 
pete