Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!mordor!joyce!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Optimal structure field ordering
Message-ID: <8192@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 30 Jun 88 16:46:27 GMT
References: <163@navtech.uucp> <806@garth.UUCP> <254@obie.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) )
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 10

In article <254@obie.UUCP> wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) writes:
>It would be very difficult to write a file system portable
>across machines of varying architecture (i.e. Idris) if the compiler
>on each machine can arbitrarily re-arrange structures to suit its own
>whim.

Although the original poster was mistaken about the order in which
struct members are assigned addresses, it is nonetheless impossible to
achieve binary file transportability simply by (acceptable) constraints
on C struct format.  There is a LOT more to binary data transportability
than byte padding, alignment, and sequencing.