Thanks for the replies. It does seem that gcc is treating them as 3 separate types. The compiler will treat plain char as signed or unsigned depending on the ABI, but even if the default is for char to act like unsigned char, it will warn you that char and unsigned char are of different types. >From the docs: Which of signed char or unsigned char has the same range, representation, and behavior as "plain" char. Determined by ABI. The options '-funsigned-char' and '-fsigned-char' change the default. It just seems that older versions of gcc didn't do this. Does it seem I'm on the right track here? Ed
