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From: aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Why pass structs? (not struct p
Message-ID: <28700009@ccvaxa>
Date: Wed, 11-Mar-87 22:48:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.28700009
Posted: Wed Mar 11 22:48:00 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Mar-87 21:57:03 EST
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Nf-From: ccvaxa.UUCP!aglew    Mar 11 21:48:00 1987


...> Why pass structs by value?

I occasionally feel uncomfortable passing structs by value,
and receiving them as the return value of the function.

Frequently because the struct starts offsmall, 16 - 32 bits
(eg. struct RectCoord { short x, y; }), so I say "I should use
pass by value here because they structure is no bigger than an
int". But then I start adding stuff to the struct, more fields,
reference counts...

The only things that I don't feel guilty about are
    typedef struct Complex {
    	float re, im;
    } Complex;
and
    typedef LongLong {
    	unsigned hi, low;
    } LongLong;
the latter because the machine I work on has 64 bit integer instructions,
though the C compiler doesn't give you access to them.