Re: [PATCH] text-utils: minor fixes to magic()

[Karel Zak <kzak@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 12:46:12PM +0100, James Youngman wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 10:18 AM, Karel Zak <kzak@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >   Please, see make(1) output during util-linux compilation. We use the
> >   "-fsigned-char" gcc option to avoid problems with ambiguous "char".
> 
> This is normally determined by the platform's ABI.  All the Linux
> implementations I know of have a char type with a sign, but IMHO

 and what PowerPC, ARM or SGI Mips?

> changing the code is the better option, since using -fsigned-char may
> make your source code incompatible with assumptions made in a
> (non-Linux) system's header files.

 IMHO well designed system headers shouldn't assume anything -- especially
 when this behaviour depends on compiler and compiler options.

       ISO/IEC 9899:

       The implementation shall define char to have the same range,
       representation, and behavior as either signed char or unsigned
       char.

       CHAR_MIN, defined in <limits.h>, will have one of the values 0 or
       SCHAR_MIN, and this can be used to distinguish the two options.

 From my point of view system headers need to work with
 -f{signed,unsigned}-char.

> In any case that change is harmless in the presence of -fsigned-char.

 Sure. Frankly, I have no clue why someone (Adrian?) has added
 -fsigned-char to CFLAGS.

 I'm going to commit your patch. Thanks.

    Karel


-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@xxxxxxxxxx>
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