> I've wondered some since I began hearing about "long longs" and
> "quads".  Wouldn't it make more sense for gcc to do:

> 	char	1 byte
> 	short	2 bytes
> 	int	4 bytes
> 	long	8 bytes

It would make tremendous sense on a 64-bit processor. In fact, this is exactly
what DEC does in Alpha OSF/1. On a 32-bit processor I suspect it would be
less than optimal, given existing code. Back in the early '80s when the VAX
versions of UNIX (32/V, 3BSD, 4BSD) were just getting started you could
probably get away with this... programs would be written to use longs 
sparingly.
Existing PDP-11 code did. Today there's so much code that expects longs to be
cheap that it'd be tough to do without good reason... like you're using a CPU
where 64-bit ints are cheap.

Hopefully NetBSD on the Alpha will follow DEC's lead.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                            `-_-'
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