Re: Use of @encode(char) not portable.

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On Monday, May 7, 2001, at 04:29 AM, Adam Fedor wrote:

> I've encountered a bug in the coding functions of the base library
> (perhaps others). @encode(char) is used in several places, but this is
> not portable. @encode(char) returns an unsigned char (_C_UCHR) on some
> machines and signed (_C_CHR) on others. It's easy to change all
> occurances to @encode(unsigned char), but I'm not sure how many people
> this will mess up. I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble though to
> create a new encoding version in every class it's needed.
>
> The other choice is to make the decoder a tad more forgiving...

I think perhaps we should replace all occurrences of @encode(char) with
@encode(signed char) ... since all the other types are consistent in that
omitting the signed/unsigned qualifier implies signed.

Making the decoders more tolerant also sounds like a good idea ... 
perhaps
we should do both?