[Vm-dev] urgent info required on Slang's shift treatment...

[John M McIntosh]

Er, well the shift left/right assembler operations are signed or  
unsigned, but TYPED languages usually figure out which one to use  
based on the type of the operators.

But since Smalltalk is type-less,

What if you code up a unsigned shift operator so there is no question  
that you want to do unsigned shifting, which also makes the  SLANG  
coder just a bit more aware he has a choice to make, casting is ok,  
but people forget. Also I can do senders of, then later wonder why am  
I not doing that here/there?

Having been bitten by signed shifting issues in the past, I can agree  
it's unpleasant.

PS I note we have methods  to  do unsigned compare logic when dealing  
with oop address so that *we* know we are doing something special,  
since people
just couldn't manage the casts correctly.

On 3-Mar-09, at 11:50 AM, Eliot Miranda wrote:

> Hi All,
>
>     I'm being bitten by Slang's treatment of bitShift: & >>.  In  
> both cases (generateBitShift:on:indent: &  
> generateShiftRight:on:indent:) Slang generates an unsigned shift by  
> explicitly casting the shifted expression to usqInt.  I can  
> understand the benefit of having an unsigned shift.  But there are  
> times when one really needs a signed shift.  Further, the Smalltalk  
> versions of both bitShift: and >> are signed shifts.
>
> Dare I change e.g. generateShiftRight:on:indent: to leave the  
> expression alone and generate either a signed or an unsigned shift  
> based on the variable's declaration?  Or must I live with a  
> maddening cCode: '(signed)' inSmalltalk: [] carbuncle?
>
> E.

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John M. McIntosh <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com>
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
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