[Patch] Fix istream::ignore + minor things

[Paolo Carlini]

Martin Sebor wrote:

> FWIW, in my experiments with gcc 3.2 on IPF, the gcc optimizer
> didn't seem to take any noticeable advantage of the hint.

Thanks for your detailed data, actually the first I can actually see with
my eyes about this issue.

Well, the first observation is obvious: nothing about x86, x86-64 or
powerpc, something a little more, popular, so to speak ;) ?

Paolo.