Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Zero Length Arrays Allowed in C Standard?DOWN
Message-ID: <21183@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 8 Dec 89 17:53:59 GMT
References: <480@codonics.COM> <2678@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> <70691@psuecl.bitnet>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 20

In article <70691@psuecl.bitnet> c9h@psuecl.bitnet writes:
>Am I overlooking something, or is storage order actually undefined?

Storage allocation order in general is left to the implementation, but
some things are specified.  In particular, structure members must be
allocated in order, possibly leaving gaps.  That is, a compiler cannot
take something like

	struct foo {
		int	a;
		char	b;
		double	c;
		char	d;
	};

and `rearrange' it to the order c/a/b/d, even if that would cause the
structure to fit in nearly half as much space.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@cs.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris