Link to source of quote: http://c-faq.com/decl/exactsizes.html http://c-faq.com/decl/exactsizes.html I'm fond of Ada's approach: generally you just specify the

Link to source of quote: http://c-faq.com/decl/exactsizes.html http://c-faq.com/decl/exactsizes.html I'm fond of Ada's approach: generally you just specify the range you want and let the compiler figure out the best integer size to use. You only need to specify a size if you're doing low-level work or FFI.