Xref: utzoo comp.arch:13820 comp.lang.c:25867
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!ibmpcug!robobar!ronald
From: ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: RISC Machine Data Structure Word Alignment Problems?
Message-ID: <1990Feb12.111309.12198@robobar.co.uk>
Date: 12 Feb 90 11:13:09 GMT
References: <111@melpar.UUCP> <1990Jan21.224826.1699@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> <328@ctycal.UUCP> <17906@rpp386.cactus.org>
Reply-To: ronald@robobar.CO.UK (Ronald S H Khoo)
Organization: Robobar Ltd., Perivale, Middx., ENGLAND.
Lines: 24

In article <17906@rpp386.cactus.org> woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes:
> 
> MS-DOS.  I have to do things like reach out over the network, and read
> data structures out of the remote controllers.  These structures for the
> most part, are a mix of byte and word fields.  I then have to parse through
> them, and isolate the parts.  Structures are the obvious way to do this.
> BUT, the @#$% compiler choses to pad byte or char values out to ints.

#ifdef MEDIUM_MADRAS

You don't think this is a hint that it would have been *so* much easier
if everything spoke *text* instead.  Sure, there's the overhead of
binary->text->binary, but the advantages outweigh the cost, especially
if you ever have a mix of controllers with wildly differing internal
architectures.

Oh, you want to discourage that to lock your customers in? Excuse me.

#endif

-- 
Eunet: Ronald.Khoo@robobar.Co.Uk   Phone: +44 1 991 1142    Fax: +44 1 998 8343
Paper: Robobar Ltd. 22 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middx., UB6 7JD ENGLAND.
$Header: /usr/ronald/.signature,v 1.2 90/01/26 15:17:15 ronald Exp $ :-)