[Pyrex] Declaring an unsigned char in Pyrex?

[Francesc Altet]

Hi,

I'm having problems declaring a *signed* char type in Pyrex.  Normally,
a plain 'char' type should be enough for achieving this, but,
unfortunately, I know that there are some issues on certain platforms
(for example, PowerPC and GCC) where declaring such a plain 'char' is
equivalent to declaring an 'unsigned char'.

So, I declared in Pyrex the next:

ctypedef signed char int8

cdef extern from "idx-opt.h":
  int bisect_left_b(int8 *a, long x, int hi, int offset)

[...]

  def _searchBinNA_b(self, long item1, long item2):
    cdef int8 *rbufrv, *rbufbc, *rbuflb
[...]
          nchunk = bisect_left_b(rbufbc, item1, nbounds, 0)

and the gcc compiler compains in this way:

src/indexesExtension.c: In function
‘__pyx_f_16indexesExtension_10IndexArray__searchBinNA_b’:
src/indexesExtension.c:1873: warning: pointer targets in passing
argument 1 of ‘bisect_left_b’ differ in signedness

After looking at the sources, I see that Pyrex translates the 'signed
char' (int8 above) declaration to just 'char', i.e.:

  char (*__pyx_v_rbufrv);
  char (*__pyx_v_rbufbc);
  char (*__pyx_v_rbuflb);

Shouldn't this be translated to 'unsigned char' types instead?

Thanks,

-- 
Francesc Altet    |  Be careful about using the following code --
Carabos Coop. V.  |  I've only proven that it works, 
www.carabos.com   |  I haven't tested it. -- Donald Knuth