[C-prog-lang-l] why is the value of character constant an integer

[Vladimír Kotal]

Hi all,

someone asked on Monday after the lecture why is the value of character constant an int (rather than char).

I think this is historical and for flexibility/compatibility. For instance, multi-character constants (e.g. 'ABC' - with single quotes) _usually_ (implementation defined - another type of behavior) result in values larger than a char (signed or unsigned) can hold.

By the way, you can verify compiler behavior on godbolt.org, it lets you select various compilers and versions. Here's one for the multi-char constant: https://godbolt.org/z/zjWej99xc

Most of the compilers available there implement the value the same, but not all of them (try the Chibicc compiler).

Best regards,


V. Kotal
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