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From: gvr@cs.brown.edu (George V. Reilly)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: Bitfields in unions
Message-ID: <72969@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 21 Apr 91 18:45:39 GMT
References: <carbide@dce.ie> <680@taumet.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: gvr@cs.brown.edu (George V. Reilly)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Brown University, Providence RI
Lines: 18

In article <680@taumet.com> steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage) writes:
+ em@dce.ie (Eamonn McManus) writes:
+ 
+ >Can a union contain a bitfield?  K&R2 obliquely implies no, while
+ >gcc -pedantic says yes.  I'm inclined to believe K&R myself, though
+ >at least on machines without alignment constraints such a thing
+ >would seem reasonable.
+ 
+ The ANSI C standard says explicitly that a union may contain a bitfield.

Well, that's another thing that Harbison & Steele III have got wrong,
then.  On p. 128, it says:
	The syntax for defining components [in unions] is the same
	as that used for structures, except that bit fields are
	not permitted in unions.
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George V. Reilly   `Strike breaker'	gvr@cs.brown.edu   +1 (401) 863-7684
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