32 bit longs
Doug McDonald
mcdonald at aries.scs.uiuc.edu
Fri Jan 25 01:22:35 AEST 1991
In article <1348 at geovision.UUCP> pt at geovision.uucp (Paul Tomblin) writes:
>bright at nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>> if (sizeof(x) == 4)
>> /* code here depends on 32 bits in x */
Let us assume that it depends on having EXACTLY 32 bits in x.
>> ...
>> else
>> /* Portability alert! */
>> assert(0); /* rewrite this algorithm! */
>
>What could possibly be the advantage of that code over the following?:
>
> /* If this assertion fails, port to another machine or rewrite! */
> assert(sizeof(x) == 4);
>
Because the original will alert the reader when sizeof(x) is 4 but
x has 64 bits. OR where sizeof(x) is 4 but x has 36 bits.
Doug McDonald
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