Daryle Walker wrote:
The "int" type was supposed to match the processor's natural built-in integer processor. That was easy to maintain in the 16- and 32-bit eras, but got screwed up when we started 64-bit computing. The C and C++ communities decided to expand its integer types by keeping the current types at their 32-bit-era sizes and extended the type system with a "long long" instead of moving "int" and "long" up and adding a "short short". Now we don't have a convenient way to name the best integer type in a portable fashion. I suggest we add a "int_natural_t" typedef to <boost/cstdint.hpp> to name the best integer type (and a corresponding "uint_natural_t"). We would have to research what that type is for each compiler and/or platform combination and use #conditionals.
Isn't int the 'natural' integer type, by definition? I never understood why long didn't become the 64-bit type. It seems pointless to have int and long the same size on 32-bit. Who still writes 16-bit code on desktop, anyway? :D