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Subject: Re: bool versus BOOL in C++

Author: Omid David Tabibi

Date: 04:50:43 09/26/03

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On September 26, 2003 at 07:32:47, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>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.

_Bool was introduced in C 99. ANSI C doesn't have any boolean type.


>
>>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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