Re: position.hh compile error C4146 (VisualStudio 2017)

[Akim Demaille]

Hi Rici!

> Le 18 août 2018 à 16:45, Rici Lake <address@hidden> a écrit :
> 
> Hi, Akim
> 
> I'd try
> 
>     return 0 < rhs || 0 - (static_cast<unsigned int>(rhs)) < lhs

Good idea!

> Or the redundant but harmless
> 
>     return 0 < rhs || static_cast<unsigned int>(-(static_cast<unsigned 
> int>(rhs))) < lhs
> 
> C4146 is a warning, not an error. It's telling you that if u is unsigned, -u 
> is still unsigned. The intent is help people avoid doing things like:
> 
>     if ( i > -2147483648) ...
> 
> which is broken (with 32-bit integers, assuming i is an int) because the 
> constant is an unsigned int and therefore the comparison will be unsigned, 
> which will have unexpected results. Or, at least, MS assumes the results will 
> be unexpected.
> 
> As I understand it, your code is precisely trying to avoid the undefined 
> behaviour possible when using -rhs, if rhs happens to be equal to INT_MIN. I 
> don’t see any problem with it, but you have to convince Visual Studio that 
> you know what you're doing.

I don’t remember why I wrote it this way, but today I don’t care much about 
INT_MIN here.  I think the code has become too complex for what it meant to do. 
 Also, maybe I should have sticked to int instead of trying to unsigned, but 
it’s too late to change that :)


> By the way, contrary to the claim in the comment in add_, that function only 
> works if min is 0 or 1. If min were 2, the return value could be 1. If the 
> intent is that b4_location_initial_column and b4_location_initial_line only 
> have 0 or 1 as possible values, it might be clearer to make them booleans 
> with names like b4_location_column_is_one_based and 
> b4_location_line_is_one_based. :-)

Yes, absolutely.  But I guess it’s too late too.

What do you think of my proposal restoring std::max?