Re: setsockopt() compat issue

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 12:49:40AM -0500, Eric Haszlakiewicz wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 02:58:11PM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> > >> It affects only 64bit platforms anyway ...
> > > Out of interest, would this always affect 64-bit platforms?  I
> > > thought somehow that they used 64-bit ints in any case in which case
> > > this would not bite..
> > 
> > I think all NetBSD's current 64-bit platforms still use 32-bit ints
> > (it's longs and pointers that are 64-bit).
> > 
> > Arguably this is wrong, since int is supposed to be the machine's
> > native word size.  Why it was done this way I don't know - I didn't
> > make that choice and can't recall anything even hinting at why it was
> > made the way it was.
> 
> One reason I've heard is that it helps minimize the space impact of
> a 64-bit system because any data type that doesn't have long or
> pointer values in it stays the same size.
> Of course, it seems like most structures I see _do_ have pointers
> in them, so that reasoning doesn't really apply.

I think the main reason would be that otherwise, you wouldn't have a way
to declare a 32bits value:
char -> 8bits
short -> 16bits
int -> 32bits
long -> 64bits

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--