strangest systems I've sent email from

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Sun, 22 May 2016, Mouse wrote:

> > How can you have the type of `size_t' wider than the widest unsigned
> > integer type in the respective revision of the language standard?
> 
> unsigned long long int isn't necessarily the largest integral type.
> Nor do I see anything requiring size_t to be no larger than it.

 Right, an implementation is free to add its own extended integer types 
and `size_t' is not required to have the same width as one of the standard 
integer types.  There's a recommendation for `size_t' not to be wider than 
`long' (unless necessary, heh), however that's just it, not mandatory.

> uintmax_t, on the other hand, would be fine; it _is_ promised to be no
> smaller than size_t (or any other unsigned integral type).
> 
> 	size_t foo = ~(uintmax_t)0;
> 
> should work fine to set foo to all-bits-set.  (Since size_t is
> unsigned, this will set it to be its largest possible value.)

 But there's no `uintmax_t' in C89.  If playing with casts already, I 
think the most obvious solution is simply:

	size_t foo = ~(size_t)0;

  Maciej