Re: should abs() be 'uint'?

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Article #2145

#2145

From: Goeran Uddeborg
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 16:24

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In article <Bv7uL7.2IK@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <eyal.717552134@ise> eyal@echo.canberra.edu.au (Eyal Lebedinsky) writes:
>>If the function was 'unsigned int' then the result would ALWAYS fit into
>>the return type...
>
>It would make sense.  Unfortunately, that's not the way abs() was defined
>originally... and changing it now might break a lot of code.

It could hardly break a lot of code, could it?  The change would
increase the domain of the abs() function by one value.  Nothing that
worked previously would stop working.  (Unless somebody actually
depend on abs() returning a negative value for one particular input
value, but do they really want to protect that kind of code?  Is it
even defined that way in the standard?)

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Message-ID: <1992Sep28.162422.26386@sics.se>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!mcsun!sunic!sics.se!uddeborg

References: <eyal.717552134@ise> <Bv7uL7.2IK@zoo.toronto.edu>

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Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!mcsun!sunic!sics.se!uddeborg
From: uddeborg@sisu.se (Goeran Uddeborg)
Subject: Re: should abs() be 'uint'?
Message-ID: <1992Sep28.162422.26386@sics.se>
Sender: news@sics.se
Organization: Swedish Institute of Systems Development
References: <eyal.717552134@ise> <Bv7uL7.2IK@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 16:24:22 GMT
Lines: 14

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