Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Introduce short names for fixed width integer types

[Anthony Liguori]

On 08/08/2011 08:12 AM, Avi Kivity wrote:
> On 08/08/2011 04:00 PM, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> > On 08/08/2011 07:56 AM, Avi Kivity wrote:
> > > QEMU deals with a lot of fixed width integer types; their names
> > > (uint64_t etc) are clumsy to use and take up a lot of space.
> > >
> > > Following Linux, introduce shorter names, for example U64 for
> > > uint64_t.
> >
> > Except Linux uses lower case letters.
> >
> > I personally think Linux style is wrong here. The int8_t types are
> > standard types.
> >
> > Besides, we save lots of characters by using 4-space tabs instead of
> > 8-space tabs. We can afford to spend some of those saved characters on
> > using proper type names :-)
>
> It's not about saving space, it's about improving readability. We have
> about 21k uses of these types, they deserve short names.

This is one of the few areas that we're actually consistent with today. 
 Introducing a new set of types will just create inconsistency.

Most importantly, these are standard types.  Every modern library and C 
program should be using them.  TBH, having short names is just a bad 
case of NIH.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori