Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The integral type 'byte' (was Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?)
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2025 13:09:44 -0700
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David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
> On 25/03/2025 19:18, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 25.03.2025 10:38, David Brown wrote:
>>>
>>> Personally, I think [...]
>> (I'll skip most of that in your post.)
>>>
>>> Thus pretty much any programmer in the last 50 years sees "byte" as
>>> synonymous with 8-bit octet, including C programmers,
[...]
>>> and for the last
>>> 30 years or so it has been the ISO standard definition of the term.
>> I suppose you meant the "ISO _C_ standard definition"?
>
> No, I meant ISO standards.  ISO 2382, ISO 60027, ISO 80000.

I just downloaded ISO 2382 from iso.org.  An extremely odd process;
I had to register and pay CHF 0 (at least it didn't ask for payment
information), and got a PDF with no actual information other than
a link to an iso.org web page that's publicly visible anyway.

<https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:2382:ed-1:v2:en>

Here's the definition of "byte" from that document:

"""
2121333
byte

string that consists of a number of bits, treated as a unit, and usually
representing a character or a part of a character

Note 1 to entry: The number of bits in a byte is fixed for a given data
processing system.

Note 2 to entry: The number of bits in a byte is usually 8.

Note 3 to entry: byte: term and definition standardized by ISO/IEC
[ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993; ISO/IEC 2382-4:1999].

Note 4 to entry: 01.02.09 (2382)

[SOURCE:ISO-IEC-2382-1 * 1993 * * * ]
"""

ISO 60027 appears to have been superseded by ISO 80000.  I'm not going
to spend CHF 115 for a copy.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */