C99 types VS Linus types

Bernardo Innocenti (bernie@develer.com)
Sun, 6 Jul 2003 07:03:58 +0200


Hello,

before a standard was set, every single OS had to come up with its
own fancy fixed-size type definitions such as DWORD, ULONG, u32,
CARD32, u_int32_t and so on.

Since C99, the C language has acquired a standard set of machine
independent types that can be used for machine independent
fixed-width declarations.

Getting rid of all non-ISO types from kernel code could be a
desiderable long-term goal. Besides the inexplicable goodness
of standards compliance, my favourite argument is that not
depending on custom definitions makes copying code from/to
other projects a little easier.

Ok, "int32_t" is a little more typing than "s32_t", but in
exchange you get it syntax hilighted in vim like built-in
types ;-)

I suggest a soft approach: trying to use C99 types as much
as possible for new code and only converting old code to
C99 when it's not too much trouble.

I hope it doesn't turn into an endless flame war... This is
just a polite suggestion.

-- 
  // Bernardo Innocenti - Develer S.r.l., R&D dept.
\X/  http://www.develer.com/

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