"Anders F Björklund" <afb@algonet.se> wrote in message news:cnavkn$e0i$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Ben Hinkle wrote:
>
> > A few of the posts listed on that page are about bool/bit not begin addressable. That got me thinking about adding (either builtin or
through
> > aliases or typedefs or something) a separate type for addressable bools/bits called ... drum roll please... wbit and wbool (naturally
wbool
> > is an alias for wbit). It would have the size of a byte (hence the "w")
and
> > otherwise behave like bit (which pretty much makes it behave like C++'s bool). Making bit addressable would mess up the rule that pointers all
have
> > the same size and are convertable to void* and back.
>
> You can take the address of bit variables now,
> and they should also work as "out" parameters.
>
> You can't take the address of bits within arrays.
> (or actually you can, but the pointer doesn't work)
>
>
> A single bit field/var occupies a byte in memory,
> and a bit[] field occupies (length+31)/32 bits.
>
> So "bit a; bit b;" is 2 bytes, "bit c[2];" is 4.
> (the multiple of four is for access-speed reasons)

I was being too vague. You are right that bits by themselves are addressable and can be used as out parameters. It's only when they get packed that life gets interesting - for better or worse.

> --anders
>
> PS.
> In the Mac OS X C++ compiler (g++) a "bool" is 4 bytes.
> A "_Bool", as used in C99, also occupies a full four.
> (that is, both have the same size as an "int" does...)
> On Linux, they seems to have a usual sizeof() 1 byte ?

Interesting. I hadn't really thought that bools can have different sizes but I suppose there isn't anything stopping it. Maybe int is better than byte. Dare I suggest "dbit" and "dbool" for int sized bits and bools? :-)

Ben Hinkle wrote:

> Interesting. I hadn't really thought that bools can have different sizes but
> I suppose there isn't anything stopping it. Maybe int is better than byte.
> Dare I suggest "dbit" and "dbool" for int sized bits and bools? :-)

Enough! Enough! (my poor stomach) :-D

Hat's off for that most excellent suggestion!


Henceforth, byte/char shall be known as a "wbit" when used as a bool
and int/long shall similarly be known as a "dbit" when used as a bool.

Thus, one can choose between bit, wbit and dbit for storing booleans.
This makes it consistent with the other missing type, namely strings.


Oh, the humanity
--anders

"Anders F Björklund" <afb@algonet.se> wrote in message news:cnb2jm$ic4$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Ben Hinkle wrote:
>
> > Interesting. I hadn't really thought that bools can have different sizes
but
> > I suppose there isn't anything stopping it. Maybe int is better than
byte.
> > Dare I suggest "dbit" and "dbool" for int sized bits and bools? :-)
>
> Enough! Enough! (my poor stomach) :-D
>
> Hat's off for that most excellent suggestion!
>
>
> Henceforth, byte/char shall be known as a "wbit" when used as a bool and int/long shall similarly be known as a "dbit" when used as a bool.
>
> Thus, one can choose between bit, wbit and dbit for storing booleans. This makes it consistent with the other missing type, namely strings.
>
>
> Oh, the humanity
> --anders

Actually I was being semi-serious! It is kindof overkill but I think explicit types with different behaviors are preferable to hacking up pointers.