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From: brian@merlyn.UUCP (Merlyn Leroy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: lvalues
Message-ID: <252@merlyn.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Jan-87 10:02:07 EST
Article-I.D.: merlyn.252
Posted: Tue Jan 20 10:02:07 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Jan-87 22:35:31 EST
Reply-To: brian@merlyn.UUCP (Brian Westley)
Organization: MGI Dungeons
Lines: 14

>..Assignment
>to a bit-field cannot be explained in terms of lvalue and rvalue,
>but only in terms of extractor/updater functions.  The expression
>designating a bit-field cannot be evaluated to yield a context-free
>representable "value" that can be passed around, stored &c.  Hence there
>is no lvalue of a bit-field.

This is true of most machines; however, the new TI graphics chip is
bit-addressable, and pointers to bitfields are perfectly legal.
(This is of course a non-portable extension).  This is also a good
argument for little-endianism.

-- 
Merlyn Leroy	(...ihnp4!umn-cs!rosevax!rose3!merlyn!brian)