Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I disagree.

You should know the range of values that you are expecting to be holding in an integer, and choose the type accordingly.




That does not contradict what I said. When choosing the type, all you need is a type that has at least the range you require, and the basic types give guaranteed minimum ranges.

The only advantage to choosing an exactly-N-bit type over an at-least-N-bit type is possibly saving some space in very large allocations. In most cases this won't be important - and when it is, the mininmum-width types from stdint.h (eg int_least32_t) are more apropos than the exact-width types.

The disadvantage is the impedance mis-match with all the existing libraries of code using the basic types.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: