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From: Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Integral types and own type definitions (was Re: Suggested method
 for returning a string from a C program?)
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:34:51 +0000
Organization: Fix this later
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On 25/03/2025 17:09, Michael S wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Mar 2025 05:02:45 -0700
> Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:
> 
>> Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> writes:
<snip>
>>> Wouldn't the term 'whole numbers' be preferred in everyday English?
>>>   
>>
>> "Whole numbers" are all non-negative.
>>
>> "Integers" include values less than zero.
> 
> Thank you.
> Sounds like English everyday use differs from two other languages that
> I know relatively well in both of which "whole" numbers include
> negatives.

....English being one of them.

Wiktionary offers "integer", and the Cambridge Dictionary "a 
number, such as 1, 3, or 17, that has no fractions and no digits 
after the decimal point".

The OED gives us "Of a number: equal to one or to a sum 
consisting of one added to itself a certain number of times; 
(also) equal to the negative of such a number or to zero; = 
integral adj. A.4a. Esp. in whole number."

Wolfram is ambivalent on the matter: "One of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 
.... (OEIS A000027), also called the counting numbers or natural 
numbers. 0 is sometimes included in the list of "whole" numbers 
(Bourbaki 1968, Halmos 1974), but there seems to be no general 
agreement. Some authors also interpret "whole number" to mean "a 
number having fractional part of zero," making the whole numbers 
equivalent to the integers" and goes on to recommend various 
flavours of integer instead.

-- 
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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