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From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Size of SysV "block" (really: byte != 8 bits)
Message-ID: <811@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Tue, 28-Jul-87 19:03:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.811
Posted: Tue Jul 28 19:03:47 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jul-87 03:34:06 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <857@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 14

In article <857@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>On modern machines, a byte is 8 bits.  [Anything else is archaic.] ...

>In his book "Reliable Data Structures in C", Thomas Plum gives portable
>implementations of the memxxx functions (e.g.  memset(), memcpy()).  He
>does not feel the need to point out that these are portable only if the
>machine's word will hold exactly an integral number of chars.

He doesn't need that restriction because the C language has already imposed
it.  But this has nothing to do with 8-bit bytes!  On a 36-bit machine, a byte
(in the C sense) *cannot* be 8 bits.  If Plum's implementation is portable, it
will still work on such a machine, with 9- or even 12- or 36-bit bytes.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint