On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:21:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

>> (a) sloppy
>> declaration of the variable type, letting the default signed value be
>> used rather than specifying an unsigned data type
> 
>   How exactly would that solve the problem? The only difference would be
> that instead of seeing something like "-1234" you would see something
> like "4294966062" (or "18446744073709550382" if they are using 64-bit
> values), which isn't any more helpful. In fact, it's actually worse
> because it's even more confusing.

Because the problem was caused by an overflow condition in the 
calculator.  IIRC, I did the math, and the value was in fact correct, 
just with the wrong sign.  But the fact that it evaluated as a negative 
number threw all sorts of other issues with regards to filesystem 
compression and problems with server-based programs that were checking 
for free space and seeing there was none available when in fact there was 
more than enough.

Jim

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