[Python-Dev] Re: sre warnings (original) (raw)

Martin v. Loewis martin at v.loewis.de
Sat Jan 10 16:53:45 EST 2004

Sjoerd Mullender wrote:

If sizeof(int) < sizeof(sizet), is it guaranteed that (sizet)-1 expands to a bit pattern of all 1's?

As Tim explains: If you assume that the machine uses two's complement, then yes. However, this is irrelevant. More interestingly: Is it guaranteed that you get the largest possible value of size_t? Based on the language spec fragment that Tim cites: yes.

This actually isn't really relevant either. Is it guaranteed that you get a value of size_t different from all values that denote real sizes of things? To this, the answer clearly is no: There might be objects whose size is (size_t)-1. However, it is unlikely (perhaps even unlikely :-) that you ever meet such an object in real life.

By definition, (size_t)-1 == ~(size_t)0 in all conforming implementations.

Regards, Martin

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list