Subject: Re: Theory #51 (superior(?) programming languages) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/01/21 Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme Message-ID: <3062850267355805@naggum.no> * Erik Naggum | _I'd_ like a _low-level_ language to handle integer overflow, or at least | give me access to this absolutely _vital_ information. C doesn't. * D. J. Bernstein | unsigned long u; | unsigned long v; | | ... | | v += u; | if (v < u) overflow(); thank you. you prove my point most eloquently: C does not give programmers access to arithmetic condition known as "overflow". as I said, A+1 is either A+1, 0 or -(A+1) in C. you can test which of these values you get, but you cannot detect overflow in the general case. obviously, that claim cannot be refuted by producing one _more_ special case. #\Erik -- 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine -- a basic ingredient in quality software.