Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!edsel!bentley!hoxna!houxm!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxj!mhuxr!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!olympus!bruce@su-shasta.arpa From: bruce@su-shasta.arpa Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: Alignment problems in C Message-ID: <6893@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Wed, 2-Jan-85 02:01:45 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.6893 Posted: Wed Jan 2 02:01:45 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 3-Jan-85 04:08:53 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 14 Having ``packed'' structures in C would help tremendously in writing protocol code. There really are times that the data is defined by someone else, and having a clear (structured) way of describing it is MUCH better than packing and unpacking inside of the receiving/ generating code. It may also be more efficient. I recommend some mechanism for forcing ``packed'' structures. If a particular compiler cannot handle some alignments, it can complain when it sees them, e.g., { char, short, long } can complain about the short and/or long on an odd boundary. This would be a useful ``standard extension'' to C. /Bruce Borden