[sdcc-devel] Anyone using --short-is-8bits option? I'd consider removing it.

[Philipp K. K. <pk...@sp...>]

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sdcc has a --short-is-8bits option. It was broken for some time, but has
been fixed in rev. #6608.

However IMO this looks like kind of option that we might want to remove
to me:
1) It enables nonstandard (as in not standard-conforming) behaviour
2) Everything to be gained by using this option (speed and code size)
can be gained in a standard way: Just use signed char or int_fast8_t or
int_least8_t instead of short int.
This requires changing the source, which is not an issue if it's
newly-written code. For existing code one would have to check everywhere
if it would work with 8-bit shorts as well, which is error-prone and not
less effort than changing the code to use 8-bit ints in a standard way.

If there are any users of this option out there, please present your
use-case.

If no one uses it I'd remove it.

Philipp
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