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Subject: Re: bool versus BOOL in C++

Author: Vincent Diepeveen

Date: 04:32:47 09/26/03

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On September 26, 2003 at 06:50:59, Gerd Isenberg wrote:

>Hi All,

current compilers do not recognize bool in C.

whether it's in ansi-c 99 i would not be amazed, but before that it for sure
wasn't.

>in C++ we have the boolean type "bool" with the value range true/false.
>I'm not sure about ANSI-C.
>
>Due to some C-related "portability" problems and possible performance drawbacks
>due sizeof(bool) == 1 implies partial register handling or zero extending to
>native word lenght, you find in most MS-sources an "own" boolean type BOOL:
>
>typedef int BOOL; // e.g. WINDEF.H
>
>This own BOOL type is of course not "typesafe" as bool, as you may assign any
>"int" expressions to it. With BOOL one should interprete zero as FALSE and any
>other value as TRUE. Due to this ambiguity, comparing BOOL-expressions with TRUE
>may be erroneous, so better compare with != FALSE.
>
>See also this bugreport related to this issue:
>
>http://www.codeproject.com/buglist/virtualboolbug.asp
>
>Actually i have some "disputes" with colleagues obout it.
>I found bool better for didactical reasons,
>but stay with BOOL for pragmatical reasons.
>
>A few questions:
>
>Is sizeof(bool) == 1 per definition,
>or is it compiler implementation depending?
>
>Is there any conditional preprocessor directive to ask whether a user defined
>type is already typedefined, similar to #ifdef?
>
>What is your opinion / experience with bool versus BOOL?
>
>Thanks in advance for your suggestions,
>Gerd



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