🚀 go-pugleaf

In <BLUME.95Sep15102347@dynamic.cs.princeton.edu>, blume@dynamic.cs.princeton.edu (Matthias Blume) writes:
>In article <43bdus$l2g@nntp.nta.no> ohk@hal.nta.no (Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen TF.E/DELAB) writes:
>
>   What worries me is that there does not seem to be a clean way to ensure that a
>   record has a specific *physical* layout. If it is to be used for systems
>   programming, I think this is an important feature, because there is often a need
>   to interface to devices which expect to use a fixed data format.
>
>If you had read the C standard or any of the more popular documents
>describing it then you would know that neither C nor C++ give you such
>a guarantee either.
>
>--
>-Matthias

I see no way a language can guarantee a specific layout for a record. In some architectures
there are different byte ordering and some do not have bytes at least in the normal sense.

As a practical matter I have never had a problem producing a specific format when needed.
I see no problems for system programming. Compilers for systems with unusual architecture
almost have to have extensions to deal with special problems no matter what the language is.

John McMonagle
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