Signed word lengths and indexes

[Walter Bright]

Don wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> Note that your argument is predicated on using signed types instead 
>>> of unsigned types in the first place, and tacitly assumes the issue 
>>> is frequent enough to *add a new operator*. Yet unsigned shifts 
>>> correlate naturally with unsigned numbers.
>>>
>>> So what is exactly that is valuable in >>> that makes its presence in 
>>> the language justifiable?
>>
>> Generally the irritation I feel whenever I right shift and have to go 
>> back through and either check the type or just cast it to unsigned to 
>> be sure there is no latent bug.
> 
> But x >>> 1 doesn't work for shorts and bytes.

I know. That's ill thought out.

> 
>> For example, the optlink asm code does quite a lot of unsigned right 
>> shifts. I have to be very careful about the typing to ensure a 
>> matching unsigned shift, since I have little idea what the range of 
>> values the variable can have.
> 
> I've read the OMF spec, and I know it includes shorts and bytes.
> So I really don't think >>> solves even this use case.

I can send you the source if you like <g>.