From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:26:52 -0700 From: "Ronald G. Minnich" To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] (no subject) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Topicbox-Message-UUID: 160ce544-eace-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Charles Forsyth wrote: > i thought the rationale (seemed to be) that by using `packed', > a programmer could describe an arbitrary protocol header > (ok, the one for tcp/ip) using a precise sequence of C declarations > within a structure and prevent the compiler from rearranging it > to suit the given processor's natural alignment rules. yeah you're right. That was the motivation. this packed stuff is a mistake repeated every few years. I first hit it in a compiler I used at HP for embedded programming before many of you were born. I refuse to talk about it. ron