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Groups > comp.lang.c > #167704
| From | Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help |
| Date | 2022-09-14 03:24 -0700 |
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <867d26ntiv.fsf@linuxsc.com> (permalink) |
| References | (9 earlier) <8735cy0wt4.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <tfl0im$1vu1b$1@dont-email.me> <87r10hzn19.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <86v8ptpa7u.fsf@linuxsc.com> <cLxTK.200646$PRW4.166956@fx11.iad> |
Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> writes:
> On 9/11/22 11:01 PM, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>
>> Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> writes:
>>
>>> [...] I worry that, except when matching externally defined
>>> structures, the use of the intN_t (and maybe even the uintN_t)
>>> types is almost always knee-jerk programming.
>>
>> Completely agree.
>
> I would just slightly disagree.
>
> Many programs are not designed to be "highly portable", and it may be
> a reasonable assumption that a given program will only be run on
> machines which is based on 8 bit bytes.
I am taking 8-bit bytes as being the crucial property in the
remarks below. There are obvious counterparts for other
properties, such as having a two's complement representation.
> Since [u]intN_t is the shortest way to specify a size that will likely
> migrate over modereate architecture variations for variable where you
> do want to specify the "size" of the variable, using them makes sense.
First off, I wouldn't say using int8_t or uint8_t is the shortest
way to ensure 8-bit bytes. The way such types are typically
used, there will be lots of 'int8_t's or 'uint8_t's scattered
through the source code, with a correspondingly large footprint
in the program source. It is shorter to write in just one header
file in the program
#include <limits.h>
#if CHAR_BIT != 8
# error oops.. this program relies on chars being 8 bits...
#endif
typedef unsigned char U8;
typedef signed char S8;
which also can be used in implementations that don't support
C99.
Second, ignoring the question of which technique is shortest,
using [u]int8_t is often not a good way. A problem with the
exact width types is that they are both an under-specification and
an over-specification: over-specification because they often
include properties that aren't important (such as having no trap
representations), and under-specification because they might not
have properties that are otherwise desirable (such as being
exempt from anti-alias rules, as the character types are).
Granted, such problems are not likely to occur, but there is no
good reason to take the risk when it can be easily avoided.
Third, using exact width types can have consequences for parts of
the code other than declarations. In effect using exact width
types in one part of a program pushes the program into a mode
where exact width types more or less have to be used everywhere,
even when they are needed in only a few places. Even if exact
width types are an acceptable choice, in most cases they are not
the best choice.
In summary, I think a better statement is that [u]intN_t is the
laziest way to achieve what may not be a good result, and often
is a suboptimal result. The sad thing is that better techniques
don't need a lot of overhead; there is a small upfront cost, but
once that initial cost has been paid the incremental cost is
basically zero.
> Perhaps instead of making the type least_intN_t/fast_intN_t/intN_t
> they were defined instead as intN_t/fast_intN_t/exact_intN_t, or
> least_intN_t/intN_t/exact_intN_t so the simple name was one of the
> promised to exist types that might be bigger if needed, the short name
> bias would have lead to better code, but that ship has sailed.
Something that hasn't come up (I think) in the discussion of
various type choices is the distinction between types and the
names of types. In the code that I posted, the types used are
unsigned char and unsigned int. To help the discussion I put in
some typedefs to give the names UC and UI to these types, but
that doesn't change what the underlying types are. One problem
with the types in <stdint.h> is we don't know whether these names
refer to existing (standard) types, or whether they refer to
non-standard extended types. Are they fish or fowl? We don't
know. That uncertainty can cause difficulties in code that uses
some <stdint.h> types. For the most part I usually avoid using
any <stdint.h> types, for this reason and also for the reasons
explained above.
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Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help ManyBeers <markzuffi@yahoo.com> - 2022-09-08 11:34 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-08 11:56 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-08 20:19 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@delq.com> - 2022-09-08 12:34 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2022-09-08 20:38 -0600
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2022-09-09 03:22 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-09-09 13:30 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-09 09:16 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-09 19:06 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-10 11:58 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-10 11:37 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-10 13:05 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-10 14:42 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-10 16:10 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-10 18:14 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-10 12:54 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-10 16:22 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-10 19:03 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-10 19:30 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-10 19:47 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-11 14:07 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-11 16:12 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-11 17:58 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-11 21:14 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-11 20:01 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2022-09-11 23:32 -0400
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-12 13:52 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-14 03:24 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2022-09-14 08:10 -0400
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-12-26 06:09 -0800
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-12 16:53 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-12 16:48 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-12 17:46 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-12 20:37 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-13 00:03 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-13 12:31 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-13 12:48 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-13 14:18 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> - 2022-09-13 17:13 +0300
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-13 16:50 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-13 18:47 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-14 03:16 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-13 20:15 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-09-13 20:29 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-13 22:22 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-13 14:37 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-13 23:16 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-13 22:16 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-13 16:15 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-13 16:15 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-14 10:58 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-14 15:36 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.com> - 2022-09-14 21:53 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-09-14 05:55 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-14 10:10 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-14 07:54 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-14 18:32 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-09-14 18:39 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-09-15 01:12 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-15 09:11 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-15 08:07 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-09-14 18:40 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-09-14 05:45 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-14 12:11 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-14 09:57 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-14 03:09 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-14 10:29 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-14 15:14 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-14 07:36 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2022-10-03 01:10 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-10-03 11:36 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2022-10-04 02:13 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-10-04 16:27 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-13 11:48 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-14 10:38 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-14 14:27 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-14 07:58 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-16 13:06 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-16 13:16 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-12 17:55 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-09-12 18:22 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2022-09-12 20:41 +0100
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 15:45 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-09-11 15:41 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-09-12 17:06 +0200
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-11 06:46 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-11 06:57 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-11 07:07 -0700
Neologism (Was: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-09-11 14:18 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-11 16:33 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-13 15:40 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-09 23:08 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-11 06:37 -0700
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-09-11 16:31 +0000
Re: Beginner....Decimal/Octal converter help Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2022-09-13 15:44 -0700
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