From: utzoo!decvax!cca!mo@Lbl-Unix@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: C sizeof Article-I.D.: sri-unix.3099 Posted: Fri Sep 3 22:28:36 1982 Received: Thu Sep 9 05:49:03 1982 From: mo at Lbl-Unix (Mike O'Dell [system]) Date: 1 Sep 1982 10:01:24-PDT Walt, Not only is specifying structures so they look the same a boring task, IT WON'T WORK! You will never get around the BigEndian-LittleEndian problem; Vax and 11's even argue over arrangement of Longs! The real issue is that binary files are NEVER portable between machines. You can write portable programs which use binary files internally as temporaries, but you will never suceed in making them portable without extreme ineffeciency in one place or another. If you are moving data between systems, it has gotta be ASCII strings, and then you have to fight with IBM systems. It is ironic that the Unix world is just now discovering what the Software Tools people have been doing for several years now: building software which runs on many, many machines without modification. If there is interest (and I think there is), I am planning a talk on "Software Tools Experiences Applied to the Unix World" for the San Diego Usenix meeting. -Mike