To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Subject: Re: [2.6 patch] Define BITS_PER_BYTE
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 11:19:35 -0800 (PST)
Organization: Mostly alphabetical, except Q, with we do not fancy
Message-ID: <dpjrg7$cvr$1@terminus.zytor.com>
References: <20051108185349.6e86cec3.akpm@osdl.org> <20060104232442.GX3831@stusta.de> <Pine.LNX.4.61.0601050802590.10161@yvahk01.tjqt.qr> <1136474301.31922.1.camel@serpentine.pathscale.com>
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Followup to:  <1136474301.31922.1.camel@serpentine.pathscale.com>
By author:    "Bryan O'Sullivan" <bos@pathscale.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 08:03 +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> 
> > Oh no :( This sounds as uncommon as CHAR_BIT in C.
> 
> CHAR_BIT is completely unclear.  BITS_PER_BYTE is self-evident, and
> makes it a lot more obvious when you're doing arithmetic that involves
> counting bits.
> 

Tough cookies.  The standard name for this define is CHAR_BIT, and
anyone who doesn't know that "char" means byte in C doesn't know the C
language.  "char" certainly doesn't mean "character" in this day of
UTF-8 and friends.

	-hpa

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