This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 Core Issues List revision 116a. See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official list.

2024-12-19


2827. Representation of unsigned integral types

Section: 6.8.2  [basic.fundamental]     Status: review     Submitter: David Detweiler     Date: 2021-09-12

(From editorial issue 4893.)

It is unclear whether the representation of unsigned integral types is unspecified or implementation-defined.

Proposed resolution [SUPERSEDED]:

Change in 6.8.2 [basic.fundamental] paragraph 17 as follows:

The types described in this subclause are called fundamental types. The representation of a fundamental type is unspecified except as stated in this subclause.

CWG 2023-12-01

Since there is no requirement for "implementation-defined" in the specification, the representation is unspecified by omission. It was noted that "unspecified behavior" has well-defined (and narrow) meaning, whereas the not-specified property here is static throughout the instance of the abstract machine. In that sense, it is similar to implementation-defined, abent the documentation requirement. It might be worthwhile to have a defined term for such properties.

Proposed resolution:

Change in 6.8.2 [basic.fundamental] paragraph 17 as follows:

The types described in this subclause are called fundamental types. The representation of a fundamental type is implementation-defined, subject to the constraints in this subclause.