Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!texsun!texsun.central.sun.com!convex!authorplaceholder
From: hutchson@convex.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Portability and BS
Message-ID: <64400010@convex>
Date: 19 May 88 15:25:00 GMT
References: <11530@mimsy.UUCP>
Lines: 11
Nf-ID: #R:mimsy.UUCP:-1153000:convex:64400010:000:665
Nf-From: convex.UUCP!hutchson    May 19 10:25:00 1988


This alignment issue is not so simple.  In the IBM 360 family, the 360
machines required "ints" to be aligned mod 4; the 370 and
later processors did not.  In the M68xxx family, the 68008 imposes no
alignment restrictions; the 68000 requires "shorts" and "ints" to be aligned
mod 2; the 68010 (fill in the blank); the 68020 again relaxes the alignment
restrictions.
    Conclusion:  regardless of what your favorite language standard says,
if (2^n)-byte quantities (n<4) are not aligned mode (2^n), the resulting
program is not portable.  Having used various members of the 68000/360/600
families, I automatically align everything.  Tisn't difficult, not at all...