Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
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: Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:59:48 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <vs14p5$20ejf$1@dont-email.me>
References: <vrd77d$3nvtf$2@dont-email.me> <vrdhok$47cb$2@dont-email.me>
 <20250319115550.0000676f@yahoo.com> <vreuj1$1asii$4@dont-email.me>
 <vreve4$19klp$2@dont-email.me> <20250319201903.00005452@yahoo.com>
 <86r02roqdq.fsf@linuxsc.com> <vrh1br$35029$2@dont-email.me>
 <LRUCP.2$541.0@fx47.iad> <vrh71t$3be42$1@dont-email.me>
 <KFVCP.594649$SZca.498578@fx13.iad> <vrhb77$3frk8$1@dont-email.me>
 <vrru8f$174q6$1@dont-email.me> <86o6xpk8sn.fsf@linuxsc.com>
 <vrtmu4$2s1q2$1@dont-email.me> <20250325011327.41@kylheku.com>
 <20250325131110.000056bd@yahoo.com> <86bjtpjp22.fsf@linuxsc.com>
 <vruid4$3iuvq$1@dont-email.me> <87iknw7sz8.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com>
 <vs0e6r$1avlb$2@dont-email.me> <87sen05cza.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com>
 <vs0olv$1lodm$1@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:59:50 +0100 (CET)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="e6a35e9678f9481385dd1adce673b0e8";
	logging-data="2112111"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+KQsVmkfDuMnSxNyruKkhP"
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/45.8.0
Cancel-Lock: sha1:vTyqgEInThiq/Z/tF4V/69LOawE=
X-Enigmail-Draft-Status: N1110
In-Reply-To: <vs0olv$1lodm$1@dont-email.me>
Bytes: 3146

On 26.03.2025 12:33, David Brown wrote:
> On 26/03/2025 10:59, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>> [...]
>>> Sure.  But most people have forgotten such details long ago - negative
>>> numbers are not part of daily life (except as an indicator of how much
>>> you owe the bank...).  After all, negative numbers are not natural!
>>
>> Most people understand credits and debits.
> 
> They do.  But they understand it as "I owe the bank $100" - they don't
> view it as "I have -$100 in my bank account". [...]

I don't know about contemporary bookkeeping but in my youth they had
two columns with non-negative numbers for both sides, the credits and
debits. Nowadays, e.g. in online banking, we see signed numbers.

> 
> Even in C (in a desperate attempt to bring us back on topic for the
> group), there are no negative integer constants - merely positive
> integer constants with a unary minus operator applied.

Is that so? (Harmlessly asking.) - I mean, if I write  int x = -5;
does it matter (in "C") whether its parsed as  <integer number>  or
 <negation> <positive number> ?

I faintly recall a discussion, I think in context of exponentiation.

But I don't want to (re-)open a can of words...

Janis