www.delorie.com/archives/browse.cgi   search  
Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/10/26/15:32:22

From: broeker AT acp3bf DOT knirsch DOT de (Hans-Bernhard Broeker)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: size_t
Date: 26 Oct 1999 19:53:25 +0200
Organization: RWTH Aachen, III. physikalisches Institut B
Message-ID: <7v4pql$630@acp3bf.knirsch.de>
References: <3815C123 DOT 3537E6B7 AT id-base DOT com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: acp3bf.physik.rwth-aachen.de
X-Trace: nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE 940960410 22798 137.226.32.75 (26 Oct 1999 17:53:30 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: abuse AT rwth-aachen DOT de
NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Oct 1999 17:53:30 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Lines: 25
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

sephiroth AT id-base DOT com (sephiroth AT id-base DOT com) wrote:
> what type of data and what size( ie. is it a long, long long, etc ) is
> the "size_t" format set to in DJGPP? Thanx in advance for any help, I
> would check the FAQ but I really do not have a lot of time at the mo.

The concise answer to this question would be: "Wrong Question."  In
other words: don't bother, you should *never* need to know that. If
you think you do need to know, re-think your strategy --- you're
coding unportably, without a need to. A size_t is a size_t, and it's
used for certain things (arguments of some library functions, and the
return value of the sizeof operator, mainly); that's all you ever have
to know about it.

This same thing holds for quite a lot of other datatypes and/or
variables defined by the C language and its standard library: they
have been defined precisely to *avoid* the programmer having to know
their inner details. For the same reason, you shouldn't ever have to,
nor even want to find out what a 'FILE *' really points at: whatever
you would find out, it would only be so for *this* special compiler,
in *this* special version, possibly under *this* special set of
compiler flags. Come back next week, and all of it may have changed.
You should never base a program on such weak assumptions.
-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

- Raw text -


  webmaster     delorie software   privacy  
  Copyright © 2019   by DJ Delorie     Updated Jul 2019