Re: [cc65-devel] ca65 range check vs. signed operations

[Greg K. <gr...@us...>]

From: Marc Rintsch
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014; 7:35 AM -0400
>
> On 16/04/14 21:14, Brad Smith wrote:
>> Since the default behaviour of ca65 currently seems to discourage signed
>> data, I have a few ideas for how to respond to that problem:
>>
>> 1. Use ".feature force_range" or "--feature force_range" to disable
>> the range check.
>>
>> 2. Manually disable the range check, on signed operations, with "<".
>>
>> 3. Create new symbols for signed data.
>>
>> 4. Widen the range check to include -128 to 255.
>
> What about:
> 5. Use a macro that does the range check for a signed byte,
> and use the "<" operation.

I prefer a combination of 4 and 5.  I think that an assembler shouldn't be 
concerned with how we use a number (ie., what we pretend that it means).
The only thing that the assembler should care about is whether or not 
numbers can fit into bytes (or words).