Using typedefs (or #defines) on built in types - any sensible reason?
- by jb
Well I'm doing some Java - C integration, and throught C library werid type mappings are used (theres more of them;)):
#define CHAR char /* 8 bit signed int */
#define SHORT short /* 16 bit signed int */
#define INT int /* "natural" length signed int */
#define LONG long /* 32 bit signed int */
typedef unsigned char BYTE; /* 8 bit unsigned int */
typedef unsigned char UCHAR; /* 8 bit unsigned int */
typedef unsigned short USHORT; /* 16 bit unsigned int */
typedef unsigned int UINT; /* "natural" length unsigned int*/
Is there any legitimate reason not to use them? It's not like char is going to be redefined anytime soon.
I can think of:
Writing platform/compiler portable code (size of type is underspecified in C/C++)
Saving space and time on embedded systems - if you loop over array shorter than 255 on 8bit microprocessor writing:
for(uint8_t ii = 0; ii < len; ii++)
will give meaureable speedup.
