🚀 go-pugleaf

RetroBBS NetNews Server

Inspired by RockSolid Light RIP Retro Guy

Article View: comp.std.c
Article #4167

Re: Union access

#4167
From: Christopher R. Volpe
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 21:06
35 lines
1722 bytes
In article <812736828snz@soliton.demon.co.uk>, Ian Cargill <ian@soliton.demon.co.uk> writes:
>It has been asserted elsewhere by someone that:
>
>> "The only guarantee that C gives is that the following data 
>>  structure can be written one way and read another."  
>>
>>   union {
>>     unsigned char a[4];
>>     int b;
>>     }
>
>I replied with my opinion that this is actually implementation defined 
>behavior, and that the only guarantee the standard gives is regarding 
>access to common initial sequences of structs in a union.
>
>Since there is still some dispute, I would welcome comment from the 
>assembled multitude, particularly those who know what they are talking 
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>about.  A majority verdict will do. :-)
 ^^^^^
Well, that never stopped me before, so here goes:

I don't think the person who said that was talking specifically about
properties of unions, but rather about the general rule that you can access
the storage of any object (e.g. "int b;") using an lvalue of type unsigned
char.




--

Chris Volpe				Phone: (518) 387-7766 (Dial Comm 8*833
GE Corporate R&D			Fax:   (518) 387-6560
PO Box 8, Schenectady, NY 12301		Email: volpecr@crd.ge.com
Technical Details
Message-ID: <44s8l7$ma7@rdsunx.crd.ge.com>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!bart.crd.ge.com!volpe
References: <812736828snz@soliton.demon.co.uk>

Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!bart.crd.ge.com!volpe
From: volpe@bart.crd.ge.com (Christopher R. Volpe)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: Union access
Date: 3 Oct 1995 21:06:47 GMT
Organization: GE Corporate Research & Development
Sender: volpe@bart (Christopher R. Volpe)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <44s8l7$ma7@rdsunx.crd.ge.com>
References: <812736828snz@soliton.demon.co.uk>
Reply-To: volpe@ausable.crd.ge.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: bart.crd.ge.com