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From: UNBCIC@BRFAPESP.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ALIGN
Message-ID: <9102151416.AA00926@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 14 Feb 91 20:27:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: UNBCIC%BRFAPESP.BITNET@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 25

> > ...when you <BUILDS things, you need to align it.  And, if the word
> > DOES> nothing, the user will have to use ALIGN before @ and ! too.

>Actually, that's not true, if the system implementor did things right.  The
>last word-aligned system I used automatically ALIGNed before every CREATE.
>This forced the parameter field to an even address (which was required for the
>thread of a colon definition). So, DOES> always returned an aligned address,
>and the user didn't have to worry about it.

>Strings compiled in-line were always padded to an even number of bytes; this
>required a small bit of additional logic in the run time code which advances
>the IP over the string, but it was invisible to the user.  (In-line byte
>parameters were forbidden, no great loss.)

1) I think the loss of the ability to compile bytes is a great loss.
2) How about
: DATA CREATE ALLOT ( NAME ) , ( AGE ) ;
15 30 DATA NAME_1

Just putting 15 won't work. SPARCs have 4-bytes alignement restriction too, for
example. And on and on. And RECORD structures ARE VERY USEFUL.

                              (8-DCS)
Daniel C. Sobral
UNBCIC@BRFAPESP.BITNET