Xref: utzoo comp.arch:4839 comp.lang.c:10151
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!necntc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: negative addresses
Summary: Smarter BSS?
Message-ID: <4023@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: 16 May 88 18:52:04 GMT
References: <2393@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <21541@amdcad.AMD.COM> <1988May15.222335.13174@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 14

In article <1988May15.222335.13174@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The biggest nuisance, actually, [with a nonzero representation for NULL] is
>the loss in effectiveness of the "BSS" optimization for object-module size.

One could implement separate segments for "integral BSS", "pointer BSS", and
"floating BSS".  Mixed-type aggregate BSS would still be the compiler's
responsibility, unless you have a really smart object format.

You'd probably also catch a few programs that (improperly) assume that
"int x; char *y;" allocates adjacent memory cells.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
(In the above, "BSS" means "uninitialized static-duration data".)
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