C string.h inquiry about int vs char

Asked Jan 15 '15 at 23:21

Active Jan 15 '15 at 23:21

Viewed 39 times

I understand the differences between char and int and almost all types. I just don't understand why int c is used? Isn't this a different bit size than C? I just want to understand why they use int instead char for the parameter c. I appreciate the knowledge.

Here are the methods/functions I am talking about?

char *strchr(const char *str, int c);
char *strrchr(const char *str, int c);

I know there are more.

asked Jan 15 '15 at 23:21

napkinsterror

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Google "c integer promotion", lots of good hits. – Hans Passant Jan 15 '15 at 23:26
perfect. pretty much what I was working for, just some solid reasoning. – napkinsterror Jan 15 '15 at 23:31
beside the char promotion to int in C, there is also the char being looked for could be '\n' which, depending on the OS may be 1 or 2 bytes (in windows/DOS it is two bytes, in most other OSs it is one byte.) – user3629249 Jan 16 '15 at 00:25

C string.h inquiry about int vs char

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