On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Jonathan Wakely <jwakely....@gmail.com> wrote: > 2012/2/5 David Brown : >> >> Enum types in C++ can be any integer type big enough to cover the required >> range. I think most C++ compilers use the smallest integer type that covers >> the range. > > With the three C++ compilers I tried enums are int-sized for > compatiblity reasons, so that enums declared in a header file included > by C code and C++ code will agree on the type layout.
A decade ago I dealt with at least one platform where that was not the case (meaning that using enums had to be disallowed in header files that defined interfaces between C and C++ code). I don't recall whether C allows enums types to vary in size, but in practice I've not noticed a C compiler that did.
