🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4jv7ri$dam@solutions.solon.com>, mholcomb@BIX.com says...
> Bill Wendling wrote:
>  >}    Why isn't the size 2*sizeof(int)+2*sizeof(char)?
>  >
>  >Byte alignment?
>  >
>  >}    How could you decrease the size of the structure without removing
>  >}    any members?
>  >
>  >Rearrange the elements.
>  >
> Aren't these questions platform dependent?

Yes and no.  The standard doesn't assure us of correct answers, but not all 
knowledge of C comes from the standard.  Given:

typedef struct { long a; char b; } A;
typedef struct { char b; long a; } B;

There's nothing in the standard to require that an A will always be the same 
size or smaller than a B.  However, it's true with a large enough percentage 
of compilers that's I'd consider it basically a fact nonetheless.  Most likely 
somebody will now feel obliged to hack gcc to align all structure elements to 
odd byte boundaries or somesuch to prove that wrong.  However, I'm willing to 
be that even if they do, they won't use the compiler much this way...
    Later,
    Jerry.