Bug#382960: perl-doc: perlfunc(1) man page is not clear about what a quad is

[Dominic Hargreaves]

On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 12:59:51PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> The perlfunc(1) mac page first says:
> 
>     q   A signed quad (64-bit) value.
>     Q   An unsigned quad value.
>           (Quads are available only if your system supports 64-bit
>            integer values _and_ if Perl has been compiled to support those.
>            Causes a fatal error otherwise.)
> 
> meaning that a quad has 64 bits exactly. But later it says:
> 
>     q, L or ll  interpret integer as C type "long long", "unsigned long long".
>                 or "quads" (typically 64-bit integers)
> 
> meaning that a quads doesn't have necessarily 64 bits (according to the
> ISO C99 standard, a "long long" may have more, though I don't know any
> current implementation with a "long long" size > 64 bits).

Nitpicking, but it is not suggested that a quad is defined by the
definition of a 'long long'. Nevertheless, there is a discrepancy about
whether a quad is only usually, or always, 64 bits which ought to be 
resolved (either that, or an ambiguous precedence, if the parenthetical
remark is supposed to apply to all three!)

Does anyone know which it is?

Cheers,
Dominic.

-- 
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
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