Robert P. J. Day wrote: > a project that i inherited a while back contains a header file with > the following macros: > > #ifndef UCHAR > #define UCHAR unsigned char > #endif > > #ifndef UINT > #define UINT unsigned short int > #endif > > #ifndef ULONG > #define ULONG unsigned long int > #endif > > #ifndef BOOL > #define BOOL unsigned int > #endif > > #ifndef TRUE > #define TRUE (1>0) > #define FALSE !TRUE > #endif > > > and proceeds to, naturally, define numerous variables using those > macros. it's not clear why the original programmer chose to do it > this way rather than just use <stdint.h> and things like uint8_t and > so on. Probably because <stdint.h> isn't in C89. It's in C99, and also provided by some compilers which don't otherwise implement C99. Also, macros such as the above might simply be used as shorthand, to save typing and/or screen area (although I don't think that's the case here). In which case, they should refer to the platform-dependent types rather than fixed-size types. E.g. if the code used: LONG offset; ... fseek(fp, offset, seek_set); then LONG needs to be "long" not some fixed-width type. > i don't see any overwhelming need to add yet another level of > complexity when the standard types would seem to do just fine. > > also, i'm uncomfortable by the fact that "UINT" is defined as being > "unsigned short int", which is visually misleading. not to mention > that "unsigned long int" is machine-dependent, no? The fact that UINT is defined as unsigned short int leads me to suspect that this project started out on a 16-bit system (e.g. DOS) then was ported to 32-bit architectures. > is there a reason for having done it this way in the first place that > anyone knows of? or can i just rip all that nonsense out and use > <stdint.h> types directly? thanks. In this case, where the programmer appears to have specific sizes in mind (e.g. UINT is 16 bits), you should probably use the <stdint.h> types (although you may need to provide that file yourself; it's not part of the C89 standard). -- Glynn Clements <glynn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-c-programming" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
