[Info-vax] nice for VMS

[P. Sture]

In article <grup9q$efj$03$1 at news.t-online.com>,
 Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> wrote:

> Arne Vajhøj schrieb:
> 
> > 
> > It happens - struct(ure)s that are written or read to or
> > from file/socket and have to be packed.
> > 
> > Obviously not very funny when the code later has to be ported
> > to Solaris/SPARC.
> > 
> 
> In this case it might be better to align the structure members
> manually on 4/8 byte boundaries by inserting appropriate
> padding members. Wastes space, but reduces headaches.

Going back to VAX only days here, but I once had to interface with 
British Telecom systems using X26, and it was in their message frame 
specification that the integer fields were big-endian.

I cannot remember whether they were aligned or not, but it was not under 
our control. My point is that there are bound to be interface systems 
out there which don't necessarily have integers aligned, dating from 
times when non-alignment didn't carry such an overhead.

-- 
Paul Sture