Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 16:18:56 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia <XXguille AT XXiies DOT XXes>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Portability and size_t type related question
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On Thu, 13 May 1999, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia wrote:

> >> Like 'char' is always 1 byte.
> >
> >That's not true, either.  There are compilers (mostly for embedded 
> >systems) where `char' is 32-bit wide.
> 
> Then a byte is defined as 32 bits on those systems.

AFAIK, there's no such thing as a `byte' in the C language description.  
So defining a byte as 32 bits doesn't help for the issue at hand which 
had to do with portability of C programs.

Most people think that byte is a synonym for 8 bits.

> The
> exact definition of byte, for every system, is the minimum addressable
> memory unit.

I'm not against this definition, but I'm not sure it's true.  A compiler 
for embedded system could disallow 8-bit bytes because that would produce 
inefficient code, not because individual bytes aren't addressable.