Re: proposed gnulib-related additions to Autoconf

[Paul Eggert]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> writes:

> The one that prompted me to make
> the macro work with shell variables?  Well, it's quite a size reduction,

Yes, that much I understand, but I don't fully understand the
shell-variable part of that patch.  I just haven't had enough free
time on one block to take a look at it, that's all.

> For a signed type that happens to have 46 significant bits, and a
> sizeof(type) of `8', would you prefer a VALUE-BITS-VARIABLE containing
> `45', or a BITS-VARIABLE containing `46'?  (IOW: the difference is
> merely whether the sign bit should be counted in or not.)

I'd rather have the bit-count include the sign, since when most people
think of "32-bit signed integer" they mean for the "32" to include the
sign.