Re: lynx-dev Re: casts

[T.E.Dickey]

> 
> In a recent note, Webmaster Jim said: 
>  
> > Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 17:13:58 -0400 
> >   
> > > Casting the first parameter of FD_SET to (unsigned) looks completely 
> > > wrong to me.  I haven't seen any other programs that do this. 
> > > File descriptors on Unix are int, not unsigned. 
>  
> > > If your system (with the specific Borland compiler and header files) 
> > > needs (unsigned), it is incompatible with most of the rest of the 
> > > world...  The rest of the world shouldn't have to adapt.  Rather 
> > > the definition/implementation of FD_SET itself do the cast itself, 
> > > if that's what it takes. 
> >  
> > Presumably a Borland screw-up. I don't know what a negative file 
> > descriptor would mean, so assumed unsigned was just a saftey catch. 

no - a M$ screwup - it's in the context of winsock2.  (I didn't notice
before - sorry, but it "should" be typed 'SOCKET' for that, which happens
to be an unsigned type).  That's basically because M$ moved the errno
handling to a separate function (breaking compatibility, but I assume
discarded for multithreaded applications).

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
address@hidden
http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey