From: broeker AT acp3bf DOT knirsch DOT de (Hans-Bernhard Broeker)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: size_t
Date: 26 Oct 1999 19:53:25 +0200
Organization: RWTH Aachen, III. physikalisches Institut B
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sephiroth AT id-base DOT com (sephiroth AT id-base DOT com) wrote:
> what type of data and what size( ie. is it a long, long long, etc ) is
> the "size_t" format set to in DJGPP? Thanx in advance for any help, I
> would check the FAQ but I really do not have a lot of time at the mo.

The concise answer to this question would be: "Wrong Question."  In
other words: don't bother, you should *never* need to know that. If
you think you do need to know, re-think your strategy --- you're
coding unportably, without a need to. A size_t is a size_t, and it's
used for certain things (arguments of some library functions, and the
return value of the sizeof operator, mainly); that's all you ever have
to know about it.

This same thing holds for quite a lot of other datatypes and/or
variables defined by the C language and its standard library: they
have been defined precisely to *avoid* the programmer having to know
their inner details. For the same reason, you shouldn't ever have to,
nor even want to find out what a 'FILE *' really points at: whatever
you would find out, it would only be so for *this* special compiler,
in *this* special version, possibly under *this* special set of
compiler flags. Come back next week, and all of it may have changed.
You should never base a program on such weak assumptions.
-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.