From: Jason Merrill <jason@cygnus.com>
To: bothner@cygnus.com (Per Bothner), egcs@cygnus.com
Subject: Re: bool
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 18:44:00 -0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <u9d8k6q1aa.fsf@yorick.cygnus.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <199711112028.MAA08953.cygnus.egcs@cygnus.com>
>>>>> Per Bothner <bothner@cygnus.com> writes:
> Jason Merrill <jason@cygnus.com> writes:
>> Nonsense. Most uses of bool are to store boolean values. Most of these
>> values would have been type 'int' if 'bool' were not available. If you
>> want packed data, you can use a bitvector or 'unsigned char'.
> Most uses of short are to store integer values. Most of these
> values would have been type 'int' if 'short' were not available.
> What's your point?
My point is that C programmers use int to store flags. They could use
short or unsigned char, but they use int. Removing a 'typedef int bool'
and building with g++ should not make their code slower.
Naive users will use bool for a flag, not considering that it might
dramatically slow down an inner loop in their code. If a knowledgeable
user wants to save space, they can use unsigned char, or a bitvector, or a
bitfield for that matter.
Basically, this is a space/time tradeoff, and there is no right answer. My
opinion is that time is more important. And in any case bool has been 4
bytes on RISC targets for the past couple of years, and I don't think it's
worth changing it now.
Jason
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1997-11-11 18:44 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-11-11 8:27 bool Andrew Borthwick
1997-11-11 10:52 ` bool Per Bothner
[not found] ` <199711111843.KAA03525.cygnus.egcs@cygnus.com>
1997-11-11 12:13 ` bool Jason Merrill
1997-11-11 12:28 ` bool Per Bothner
1997-11-11 18:24 ` bool Alexandre Oliva
[not found] ` <199711112028.MAA08953.cygnus.egcs@cygnus.com>
1997-11-11 18:44 ` Jason Merrill [this message]
1997-11-12 5:59 ` bool John Carr
1997-11-12 6:25 ` bool Torbjorn Granlund
1997-11-11 15:29 Andrew Borthwick
1997-11-12 2:47 ` bool Branko Cibej
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