On Wed, 23 Sep 2015, Eric Smith wrote:
And the length of a char? It's required that
all types other than
bitfields be fully represented as multiple chars, not e.g. an int
being two and a half chars, and a char has to cover at least the range
0..255, or -128..127, and it has to have a range based on a power of
two.
...
The original "challenge" just said "C".
THAT is all ANSI C.
K&R C did not have those limitations. If you wanted to build a C with a
7 bit short, a 13 bit int, and a 19 bit long, it was OK.
Only limits were that the sizeof an int couldn't be smaller than the
size of a short, sizeof a long couldn't be less than that of an int, etc.
I am not claiming that I could create a C compiler for 1401/1410, but
these restrictions only preclude ANSI C.
Note: I am also not saying that doing so would be a good idea.
We don't have to reach back into the past for examples, either: Embedded
processors often have unabashedly non-ANSI C compilers with "unusual"
features and built-in types. One that I've used is Microchip PIC C.
--Toby