One's complement machines and C logic

[Scott Orshan]

We run the UNIX system on Sperry 1100 mainframes.  These machines
use one's complement arithmetic.  The wordsize is 36 bits.
Such architectures have two representations for zero - a word with
all zeros and a word with all ones (known as negative zero).

Some arithmetic operations result in positive zero, and some in
negative zero.  Both zeros are equal arithmetically.  Both pass
a tz (test zero) instruction.

The problem arises when C has to deal with a word as a boolean
quantity.  If I say "if(a - b == 0)" I don't care whether a
neg. or pos. zero is the result of the subtraction - it will
test equal to zero.  A shorter form of this is "if(a-b)" which
implicitly tests for zero (Boolean FALSE).

The matter for discussion is whether both zeros, or just +0
should represent a FALSE.  The programmer should
be able to say "while(a-b)" and expect that to be the
same as "while(a-b != 0)" since the language is defined this way.
Therefore, if "a-b" should happen to result in a -0, the result
should still look false.

What if we write "if(0777777777777)"?  Well, a word with all
ones looks about as true as one can get, but this number is
really zero.  Suppose I'm testing whether bits are set in a
word by either testing for zero or saying "i & 0777777777777".
Well, a word of all ones will fail this test.  Another way
to get a word of all ones is to use "~0".  Some programs
use this to mean -1.  The only way I see around this is to
redefine C to make Boolean a separate type.  A conditional
statement would require a boolean operand.  It would no
longer be valid to test an arithmetic value as a logical one.

I realize that this will not happen, nor do I like the idea
of a new data type.  It means that programmers must be careful
on a one's complement machine when testing for bits rather than
value.  About the cleanest way to check for bits set is to say:
	"if((i & 0777777777770) || (i & 07))"
so that a word of all ones will test TRUE.

Constructive comments are welcome.

	Scott Orshan
	Central Services Org., Piscataway
	201-981-3064
	{ihnp4,pyuxww,abnjh}!u1100a!sdo