Re: Why AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Stepan,

* Stepan Kasal wrote on Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 05:02:40PM CEST:
> the two aspects are:
> 
> 1) If the information about signedness of char is needed at
> build-time, it's better to use limits.h.  Such projects should not
> use AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED.  That is why the manual should generally
> recommend not to use the macro.

Sure.  We can and should do that in the manual.

> 2) If signedness of char has to be known during configure time
> AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED is still useful.

Exactly.  So the developer who decides that AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED is useful
for him either cannot use autoconf -Wall any more, or is annoyed by the
warning which is (then) wrong for him.  Since this warning hints at an
optimization rather than at a potential bug, IMVHO here a wrong warning
is worse than no warning.

> I'd also like to hear others' opinions.

Sure, I'm happy to be overridden here.  Note that Eric may be gone for a
couple of weeks.

Cheers,
Ralf