bug#32252: [PATCH] %o and %x now format signed numbers

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Helmut Eller <eller.helmut@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 06:49:34 +0200
> Cc: 32252@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> On Mon, Jul 23 2018, Paul Eggert wrote:
> 
> > %a has quite a different meaning in C11, so we'd need to use some
> 
> With your change %x will also have quite a different meaning in C11.
> 
> > other letter (or set of letters, if we want something for %x, %X, %o)
> > if we went that route. This seems like overkill for such a small
> > change to functionality that hardly ever matters; plus, %x, %X and %o
> > would continue to have problematic machine-dependent semantics and
> > would not be sensibly extensible to bignums.
> 
> If it doesn't matter to you then why make the change/break at all?  You
> could just create a function bignum-to-hex-string.

Do we really need to have identical or consistent behavior for fixnums
and bignums?  They are different beasts, so the behavior could be
different, provided that it makes sense for each of the varieties.

More generally, given the controversy, maybe we should collect some
real-life experience before we start making incompatible behavior
changes?  I mean, the bignum branch is not even merged yet, and we are
already changing the behavior with fixnums in incompatible ways.
Maybe we should merge the branch first, let the dust settle and let
people use the new functionality, then revisit this stuff with more
experience on our hands.