Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?

On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 13:36:43 GMT
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wibbled:

bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

On 20/03/2025 12:09, Tim Rentsch wrote:

Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:

>

I suspected that, but was not sure, so suggested to DFS a type that I am
sure about.

 
The width of  char and [un]signed char   must be at least  8 bits.
The width of          [un]signed short   must be at least 16 bits.
The width of            [un]signed int   must be at least 16 bits.
The width of           [un]signed long   must be at least 32 bits.
The width of      [un]signed long long   must be at least 64 bits.
 
That should be easy enough to remember now.

>
That table suggests that any program mixing 'short' and 'int' is
suspect. If 'int' doesn't need to store values beyond 16 bits, then why
not use 'short'?
>
'long' is another troublesome one. If the need is for 32-bit values,
then it's surprisingly rare in source code.

>
Long is useless, because Microsoft made the mistake of defining
'long' as 32-bits on 64-bit architectures, while unix and linux

Probably for backwards compatibility with 32 bit code that did bit twiddling
with longs.