Why does the atomic_count ++ operator return a “long” for the win32,solaris and

sync compilers,  but returns “void” for all gcc compilers?  The -- operator returns a

“long” in all cases, so this would appear to be an annoying, anomalous behavior.   

But hopefully a rational explanation exists.

Also, if it’s the value of the ++ that is wanted, two threads could return the same

value of this atomic counter, since another call is required to obtain it for the gcc case.

Thank you,

Doug