Re: at2 swap_nibbles

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 05:46:51PM +0200, Oded Arbel wrote:
> i don't think its related to anything.
> the char type is a byte sized data storage, and the signed/unsigned behaviour is only important when casting to different types.

It matters because of this:

  return ( ( byte & 15 ) * 10 ) + ( byte >> 4 );

The >> operator is allowed to sign-extend its operand, so that -16
(0xf0h) becomes -1 (0xffh).  It won't do this if chars are unsigned,
in which case 0xf0h just becomes 0x0fh.

Richard Braakman