Xref: utzoo comp.arch:13738 comp.lang.c:25825 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!bu.edu!bu-cs!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.c Subject: Re: RISC Machine Data Structure Word Alignment Problems? Summary: Why are strings of ASCII characters sacred and nothing else? Keywords: risc sun Message-ID: <1922@l.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 11 Feb 90 01:58:51 GMT References: <111@melpar.UUCP> <1990Jan21.224826.1699@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> <328@ctycal.UUCP> Followup-To: comp.arch Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department Lines: 18 In article <328@ctycal.UUCP>, ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby) writes: > In article <1648@skye.ed.ac.uk>, richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes: > > In article peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: ...................... > I don't know why this is so astonishing; you can't write out binary > values for integers between machines, what would lead anyone to believe > that structures should be any different. I can see no more reason why strings of ASCII characters should be transferrable by hardware with little software intervention than binary integers, other fixed place binary numbers, other types of numbers (not strings of numerals), mathematical symbols beyond the usual ones, etc. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)