[swift-evolution] Why hard-code octet-sized bytes?

[Félix Cloutier]

Out of curiosity, can you name an architecture that doesn't use 8-bit bytes?

Félix

> Le 17 juin 2016 à 13:01:33, Daryle Walker via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> a écrit :
> 
> When I first looked into Swift, I noticed that the base type was called “UInt8” (and “Int8”) and not something like “Byte.”  I know modern computers have followed the bog standard 8/16/32(/64) architecture for decades, but why hard code it into the language/library?  Why should 36-bit processors with 9-bit bytes, or processors that start at 16 bits, be excluded right off the bat?  Did you guys see a problem with how (Objective-)C(++) had to define its base types in a mushy way to accommodate the possibility non-octet bytes?
> 
> BTW, is there an equivalent of CHAR_BIT, the number of bits per byte, in the library?  Or are we supposed to hard code an “8”?
> 
> — 
> Daryle Walker
> Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie
> darylew AT mac DOT com 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> swift-evolution at swift.org
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20160617/3e5b079c/attachment.html>