🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <413@white.gcm>, dc@gcm (Dave Caswell) writes:
> )Nontheless, I think it's very important that this usage and the reasons 
> )be well understood, not glossed over with the 'most C compilers promote
> )passed char arguments to ints anyway'.  VERY bad practice to depend on
> )anything of the sort; it's the sort of foolishness that makes people
> )hate C and its programmers.  And it's completely un-necessary.  
> )Makes a lot more sense just to do things right.

> "dc@gcm" writes (sorry, no name available & I couldn't mail)
> I trust K&R The C Programming Language.  I quote p. 184  
> "First, any operands of type char or short are converted to int ..."

True, this is the "bible" of programming, but I think you are trying
to compare apples and oranges here.  He was discussing about passing
char and int ARGUMENTS - whether or not they automatically get casted
into ints or not.  Your quotation surprised me, and I looked it up on
p. 184.  It is under the subheading of "Arithmetic conversions" - this
is not the same thing as passing arguments to functions!  K&R are saying
something like:
        char  c = 3;
        short x = 2;
        int   result;
        result = x + c;
Here, the variables x and c are converted to integers BEFORE the arithmetic
is done.

> This is the language definition.
The *arithmetic* conversions are!

_____________________
ARPA   : chris@umbc3.UMD.EDU            BITNET : chris@umbc

"He was betrayed by the limits of his own potential."

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ARPA   : chris@umbc3.UMD.EDU		BITNET : chris@umbc

"He was betrayed by the limits of his own potential."