Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Marty Kraimer <[email protected]> · Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:14:07 -0600

Benjamin Franksen wrote:

[Aside: Is this definition in epicsTypes.h:

typedef int                epicsInt32;

garanteed to work even on 64 bit systems? AFAIK, int is supposed to be

whatever is the most natural (=fast) signed integral value on the given

architecture. Correct me if I am wrong here.]

There is no standard. The C99 standard only defines minimum sizes for

each of the integer types. In particular a long must be at least 32 bits

but may be more.

Some 64 bit compilers use

int   32 bits
long 64 bits

I think that gnu uses

int 32 bits
long 32 bits
long long 64 bits

Although 3.14 currently has epicsTypes.h in src/libCom/misc, it can

easily be moved to

src/libCom/osi/osi/xxx. Thus there can be architecture dependent

versions. Of course, this will not be a complete solution for 3.14

because very little of the code uses epicsTypes.h. Jeff created

epicsTypes.h, which has the comment: "so far this is sufficient for all

archs we have ported to". Thus it was designed to allow architecture

dependent versions.

For 3.15, code should use epicsTypes.h for anything that can be

architecture dependent or for anything that can is network accessable.

Benjamin,

I may not respond to all of your messages because my mind is not big

enough to think about too many things at the same time. It does not mean

that I don't read and consider them. Also please send them to everyone

included on this message.

In paticular, I am reluctant to get in the C++ discussion. I am so

disappointed with what C++ became and Jeff is so much in favor of using

C++ that it is going to be a major problem for V4.

Let me give an example. You praised templates. My response is "How can

templates be OK if they are build on top of the mess that C++ has

created for classes". Just this comment could generate hours of

discussion.

When I think about all the C++ syntax that MUST be done correctly for

defining interfaces, I wonder if we really want to require mere mortals

to get it all right. Remember that I WANT users to extend what epics

base supports. The bigger the learning curve before users can create and

implement their own interfaces, the less usefull the V4 database will

be. Would asynDriver be easier to learn and extent if it was done in

C++? I don't think so. It has a huge learning cure as it is.

Marty

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System