Paul Schauble <Schauble@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> (01/02/85)
The unaligned type modifier proposed by Joseph Yao already exists in
other languages. It is, however, usually taken to be a property of the
structure rather than of an individual data type. E.g.
struct foo aligned {...
This is portable, even to machines that require alignment. It just
demands that the compiler generate non-alignment dependant moves to/from
an aligned area. This is what the programmer has to do when a truly
unaligned structure is needed. !Better the machine do it than me!
Hay Committee...Unlike the recent proposal on decimal arithmetic, which
I feel does not fit the intent of C as an implementation language, this
one does fit. I have frequently needed truly non-aligned structures to
communicate with hardware, data files from other machines, etc.
I suggest that this get made a standard extension.
Paul