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From: ndiamond@watdaisy.UUCP (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Un-alignment in structures
Message-ID: <7170@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Apr-85 13:01:30 EST
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.7170
Posted: Wed Apr  3 13:01:30 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Apr-85 05:11:29 EST
References: <230@tellab2.UUCP>, <135@mit-athena.UUCP> <5399@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29

> > Even on machines that "can't do" unaligned integers, this program
> > will probably run without "error" and will give some garbage for
> > output.
> Wrong.  On most machines that don't support unaligned integers, you
> will get a signal and a core dump.

I don't know which "most" is correct, but have used examples of both
kinds of machines.  The former are enough of a pain to be cause for a
lot of care.  (For that matter, so are the latter.)

> > ...After all, what does it gain a man
> > to save a millisecond of his computer's time if he loses an hour
> > of his own time thereby?
> Sometimes it saves his successor from spending many hours figuring out
> how to get that millisecond out.  Yes, Virginia, some programs do have
> to run fast, and few are the worse for a speed improvement.

If you have to remove one millisecond from a tight loop that has to run
in 50 milliseconds, you really should use assembly.

-- 

   Norman Diamond

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