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From: Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Using representation clauses in networking software
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:33:32 +0200
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Date: 2010-08-15T13:33:32+02:00
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Have there been any efforts to fix representation clauses so that they
are suitable for expressing elements commonly found in networking
protocols?

My understanding is that representation clauses are totally unsuitable
for this purpose because they do not allow the programmer to express
endianness.  I dimly recall a technical report which argued that
expressing endianness portably was impossible.  However, Erlang's bit
syntax seems to be a counterexample, so I wonder if that issue has
been picked up in recent years.