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From: CLEBER%SBU.UFRGS.ANRS.BR@UICVM.UIC.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
Subject: Alignment problems
Message-ID: <9012060030.AA02906@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 5 Dec 90 00:37:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 20


  Could anyone help me in the following questions about "alignment
problems":
  - What is the meaning of alignment problems in comunnication between
computers of differents architectures ?
    Could you give me some examples ?
  - RFC 1014 (External Data Representation) says:
    There is a tradeoff in choosing the XDR unit size. Choosing a small
size such as two makes the encoded  data small, but  causes  alignment
problems for machine that aren't aligned in  these boundaries. A large
size  such as eight means the data will be aligned on virtually every
machine, but causes the encoded data to grow too big.
    Why does the choose of small size cause alignment problems ?
    Why does the unit size of eight will be aligned on virtually
every machine ?
  - What are the alignment problems that the BER (Basic Encoding Rules)
causes ? Could you give me examples ?

  Thank you in advance,
  Cleber Weissheimer.


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