At 04:52 PM 06/24/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi;
>
>It seems that the Java language designers have attempted to achieve
>their goal of a "language without sharp edges," in part, by preventing
>Children From Playing With Unsigned Types.
>
>(Q. Can anybody out there name another language that did the same
>thing? One answer is below my signature .. no fair peeking!)
<clip>
>(A. It's Ada!)
As for others, lessee now... Standard Pascal, ALGOL-60, most LISP variants,
at least one Smalltalk implementation, virtually all BASICs, and just about
any FP language I've ever heard of. In fact, the vast majority of languages
out there have no concept of 'unsigned' at all, and can't be changed very
easily because they also don't have bit-twiddling.
Pretty much the only ones that *do* have them which I'm familiar with are
system languages: C, C++, BCPL (which does not, strictly speaking, have
*signed* types IIRC), PL/1, Forth (IIRC), and Modula-2 (type Cardinal). The
issue just don't show up in applications programming very much.
If it's any consolation, I'm facing the same question myself in another
context - I need to build a class for bit-fiddling so I can read certain
file formats. I'll let you know if I settle on anything (I'm thinking I'll
either use a byte and deal with the sign flipping using rotates, or else
I'll unpack them - represent a bit field with an array of bools, a every
wastefull but easy method for my needs).
I'm also still trying to figure out how to send a TCP URGENT message in a
Java socket (for telnet), but that's a different mailing list.
J Osako
Programmer Analyst, Operating Systems Designer, Notational Engineer
http://www.slip.net/~scholr/resume.html
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