ihw@hou5e.UUCP (I Walkenfeld) (11/16/84)
[...] Can anyone out there help me with the following situation? Mission Impossible: Machine A is 68000-based, running on a non-standard OS (i.e., not publicly available). Machine B is either an IBM-PC or an AT&T 6300. Program X is compiled in C to run on both A and B. Obviously, different compilers are being used. A data area created by X will be copied byte-by-byte from A to B. Because of the differences in the way compilers arrange data variables, it is unlikey that X on B will be able to use the data area correctly without some sort of conversion, even though X uses identical structures on A and B. Concerns: Some of the conversion problems I foresee are- - length compatibality for data types (char and short, sighned and unsigned are used almost exclusively) - alignment and consequent padding (for individual items and structures, especially unions) - byte ordering - embedded pointers (pointing to within the data area) The conversion program will run on B when it receives the data area from A. This program can have access to both A's and B's symbol tables as well as the source structure definitions. Help requested: Is this possible???? Does such, or similar, program exist - even if for different machines? Are there C compilers for IBM-PC that give me control of alignment? Have I missed worrying about some conversion detail? Any help at all to guide me in my folly. Don't ask me why I want to do this. (I won't do it if I can't.) Thanks for any responses. Send mail please. Irwin Walkenfeld AT&T Information Systems Holmdel, NJ 07733 ....!hou5e!ihw