Amicrosof.190 net.bugs.v7 utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!microsof!gordon Sat Mar 13 14:46:51 1982 (unsigned)char explained The offical C language 'white book' discusses casts and coercions at length, but is not worded very precicely. In fact, there are two ways it might be interpreted; this ambiguity is mitigated by the fact that both ways produce the same result via different paths. Hans Spiller of Microsoft gave a paper at the last usenix discussing: 1) what the official standard is, with special DMR endorsement 2) how current (v7) compilers, both the 'pcc' and 'cc' products differ from this standard, 3) how 3.0 compilers follow the standard (almost exactly) 4) how to write code to attain portability across these various compilers. Copies are available upon request; perhaps I can get him to put a short summary on the net, if theres interest. gordon letwin decvax!microso!gordon