char (at least these days) is signed. So really, it's 7-bit ASCII.

I've been bitten by the 7-bit ASCII thing when it comes to modern 
character sets. unsigned char gets tiresome ;)


On 11/6/2017 7:25 PM, Ron Natalie wrote:
>
> I believe one of C’s biggest failings is that they did not solve the 
> schizophrenic definition of char*.
>
> Char* as historically implemented and then  CODIFIED in the C and C++ 
> standards is both the basic character type as well as the smallest 
> addressable unit of storage.
>
> Thiswas all peachy keen in the 8 bit ASCII days (and even earlier 
> alternative character sets such as EBCDIC, and its predecessors and 
> other historical character sets like UNIVAC’s fielddata_), but fell 
> apart when we started into the 16 bit and larger UNICODE._
>
> __
>
> _We needed a basic memory type that had sizeof == 1 (which void*) did 
> not meet and release char from having to play double duty._
>
> __
>
> __
>
> __
>

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