On Thu, 24 May 2007, Mike McCarty wrote: > Matthew Saltzman wrote: > > On Thu, 24 May 2007, Mike McCarty wrote: > > > > [snip] > > >>> developed. In any case, I don't know of any modern machine that > >>> doesn't represent negative integers in two's complement. > >> > >> > >> Reach into your pocket, and pull out your calculator. > > > > > > Fair enough. I'll concede the point if you can name a > > standard-conforming C compiler for my calculator. The calculator was probably programmed with a cros-compiler. It wouldn't surprise me if the compiler derived from gcc. The calculator's processor probably doesn't use decimal natively. If it does use decimal natively, one could still write a comforming compiler for it. Doing so might be more interesting than one would like. > The Standard does not say what size a byte is. CHAR_BIT defines that. > It is possible for a conforming implementation to have CHAR_BIT to > be 64. A byte does not have to be the smallest independently addressable > unit greater than a bit on the underlying architecture, but it does have > to be the smallest unit to which the implementation provides > addressability which is greater than a bit. I want to emphasize: *the implementation* . The implementation could have CHAR_BITS=13 or 67 on pretty much any given machine, not sensibly, but it could. Another poster mentioned a compiler that had char size as a compiler-time option. The implementation could provide CHAR_BITS=13 and CHAR_BITS=67. -- Mike hennebry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "Horse guts never lie." -- Cherek Bear-Shoulders
