Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: mcvax!moncam!paul@uunet.uu.net (Paul Hudson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re:Can I force a Sun 4 *NOT* to align elements on 16 bit boundaries
Message-ID: <8812051026.AA18945@marvin.moncam.uucp>
Date: 15 Dec 88 08:04:11 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Mon, 5 Dec 88 10:26:16 GMT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 55, message 9 of 14

You've just tripped up on one of the oldest no-no's in the C world.
Trying to use structs saved in a file on a variety of machines is almost
bound not to work! With care (and alignment to large boundaries and
ignoring problems of bytes order and ....) it can be done some of the
time.

I think the best way out is to write a routine to to the I/O on your file,
treating it as a byte stream, and fill in or read out of the struct
aligned how the host machine wants it. Now that should port .... ;-)!

Paul Hudson 

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