Re: Q re pack & aliased

[tmoran@acm.org]

>Seems like the old and new behavior are the same.  In both versions, the
>compiler refuses to pack aliased 24-bit components.  Or did I
>misunderstand the ealier posting?
  3.15p (& 3.16a) refuses to pack.  It generates a warning and then
ignores the pragma pack.  Replacing pragma pack with "'component_size
use 24" causes a fatal compilation error.
Prior to 3.15, it packed automatically without being asked (the
components have for xxx'size use 24, which I thought suggests that
I want them to be 24, not 32, bits.).  Janus similarly automatically
packs.  I tried it on OA 7.2.2 where pragma pack is silently ignored,
but 'component_size is properly obeyed without complaint.

>But it's not fine to make X.all slow even when X points to a component
>of an unpacked array, or into the heap.
  It's even less fine to make the program no longer run.  Something about
"make it work right, then worry about speed" ;)

  The original question was "How can I get around this limitation."
System.Address_To_Access_Conversions comes to mind, but seems awfully
heavy handed.  Compiling with no optimization makes no difference.