Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:14140 comp.lang.c++:2013
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: offsetof (was: Re: Something new for C?)
Keywords: offset of vars within structures
Message-ID: <8906@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 16 Nov 88 21:07:05 GMT
References: <73@dsoft.UUCP> <481@njsmu.UUCP> <26740@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <22164@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <22164@watmath.waterloo.edu> rbutterworth@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ray Butterworth) writes:
>... for some reason the Committee chose not to make this macro
>part of the Standard even though alignof() seems to be more useful
>(to me at least) than offsetof().

As has been explained many times before, and will be explained yet again
in the third-round response document, alignment can depend on context,
so alignof(type) is not realizable in some implementations.

>And this is one more reason why "ANSI C now" still isn't good enough.

I think having a standard drafted by people who understand these issues
will be a great service to the C community.