Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: looking for >32-bit address spa
Message-ID: <1422@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 10 Apr 89 22:33:41 GMT
References: <2569@elxsi.UUCP> <28200298@mcdurb>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 15

>Doesn't C require that a pointer fit into a long?

The (d)pANS has nuked the notion that you can stuff pointers into
objects of any particular integral type, or stuff an integral value into
a pointer (no, "p = 0" doesn't stuff the integral value 0 into "p", it
stuffs a null pointer value of the appropriate type into "p") - and,
according to the Rationale, has done so since some architectures don't
"feature uniform pointers which are the size of some integer type".  An
architecture with pointers bigger than any integral type - even if those
pointers are "uniform" - is such an architecture.

The developer of such an architecture might want to worry about the
problem anyway, if they're concerned with supporting applications that
assume you *can* stuff pointers into integers.  Then again, they might
just see how many of them can use "void *" instead....