Re: Integers on 64-bit machines

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:00:09 +0200, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:


> IMO users are not very pleased with multiple fixed-size integer types,
> which require a careful selection for every local variable. Not to
> mention the documentation for every decision... ;-)


Hmm, if you take int16 to hold values from the range 1..512, then you
indeed have to document somewhere that 513 is not a legal value. On the
contrary when you write in the program:


      type Foo is range 1..512;


then that barely requires further documentation. But what is more important
is that an exception will be raised when -3 is assigned to a variable of
the type Foo.


> [Defining the range for each variable is one of those ideas that seems
> like a good idea but in practice, programmers don't do it.


True, range (or more general constraint) is a property of a type or a
subtype. It is not a property of a variable.


--
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de
[The problem isn't that it's a variable rather than a type, the problem is
that programmers aren't very good at predicting the range of values
that a variable can take, so they won't try. If you force them to do so,
as PL/I does, they'll pick a size that works reasonably consistently and
always use that. -John]

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.