Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uw-june!pardo
From: pardo@uw-june.UUCP (David Keppel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Pragmas
Message-ID: <3902@uw-june.UUCP>
Date: 31 Dec 87 20:36:35 GMT
References: <17196@topaz.rutgers.edu> <1620005@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <5724@ccv.bbn.COM>
Reply-To: pardo@uw-june.UUCP (David Keppel)
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 15



["A pragma is a non-specific way of indicating compiler-spcific actions" . . .
  a portable way of saying that you have non-portable code]

Pragmas are not _necessarily_ portability issues.  For example the PACKED
keyword in Pascal is a "pragma" saying that data is to be stored in a space-
efficient (rather than a time-efficient) way.  A compiler can safely ignore
the PACKED "pragma" as long as the programmer didn't write any code that
depends on the code being packed.

Note, BTW, that PACKED data can be *faster* to copy than unpacked data,
so what I said above is a lie - it doesn't really mean "instead of time-
efficient", but that's the general idea.

 ;-D on  (I just PACKED my bags and my toothbrush access time went up)  Pardo