Re: Multi-character constants

From:
Victor Bazarov <v.Abazarov@comAcast.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:39:37 -0400
Message-ID:
<g52ijb$jv0$1@news.datemas.de>
Mirco Wahab wrote:

After reading through some (open) Intel (CPU detection)
C++ source (www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/276611.htm)
I stumbled upon a sketchy use of multibyte characters

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

260:
        unsigned int VendorID[3] = {0, 0, 0};
        try // If CPUID instruction is supported
        {
         ...
        }
        catch (...)
        {
         ...
        }
        return (
                 (VendorID[0] == 'uneG') &&
                 (VendorID[1] == 'Ieni') &&
                 (VendorID[2] == 'letn')
               );

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This seems to work, gcc 4.2 emits a warning:

   "warning: multi-character character constant"

and Visual C++ 9 says nothing at all.

Whats the matter w/multibyte characters now?
I didn't use them and would be glad to learn
if they are widely implemented and part of
the standard soon/now?

gcc tells us:
(http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Characters-implementation.html)
 ...
 [Characters]
 ...
 The value of a wide character constant containing more than
 one multibyte character, or containing a multibyte character
 or escape sequence not represented in the extended execution
 character set (C90 6.1.3.4, C99 6.4.4.4).
 ...


The are part of C++ since before the first Standard, IIRC. The problem
with them, however, is that the order of the bytes in memory depends on
the endianness of the system (or other factors). Also, they don't have
the type 'char', they have the type 'int' and their representation is
implementation-defined (see [lex.ccon]/1).

V
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