[boost] Re: Boost policy on relying onstdlibraryimplementationdefined behaviour

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-26 08:54:42

"Bo Persson" <bop_at_[hidden]> wrote in message 
news:d23cl3$sp4$1_at_sea.gmane.org...
>...
>> How do these strike you?
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>
> Doesn't this run into the same problems as the original standard does - 
> what to do when there isn't an integral type large enough? The current 
> library definition uses type long, because that is as wide as it gets!

Yes, but there are two ways around the problem. (1) Use long long. Almost 
all late-model C++ compilers already support long long, and the C++ 
committee is in process of adding it to the language. (2) Make it an 
implementation-defined type which must be able to hold the largest value the 
operating system supports. That means int or long is fine if sufficient for 
the platform. It also means that a type like __int64 could be used, or even 
long long itself.

If the C++ committee's library working group (LWG) prefers to the additions 
go in C++0x, then (1) is fine. If the additions go in the second library 
technical report (TR2), then (2) might be better.

--Beman