Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!ron From: ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: pointer alignment when int != char * Message-ID: <13298@topaz.rutgers.edu> Date: Mon, 13-Jul-87 15:25:14 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.13298 Posted: Mon Jul 13 15:25:14 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jul-87 02:08:34 EDT References: <493@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <6061@brl-smoke.ARPA> <3812@spool.WISC.EDU> <13218@topaz.rutgers.edu> <6655@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 16 Xref: mnetor comp.lang.c:3032 comp.unix.wizards:3236 > : When we did the compilers for the HEP Supercomputer (64 bit words), > : we opted for 16 bit shorts, 64 bit ints, and 64 bit longs. There is > : one more hardware supported type (half words-32 bits). Avoiding things... > Why not have int be 32 bits? That fits the requirement that > length char<=short<=int<=long. Not a comment, just a question... Because "int" is supposed to be a convenient size. The convenient size for us is 64 bits. Since the largest number of variables are type "int" you want to use something pretty efficient (like the word size). By they way, you assumption that type "char" has some guaranteed relationship to any of the integer types is wrong, although anyone who has "char"s that aren't exactly eight bits is likely to cause many applications to die. -Ron