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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Aligning record components
Date: 1997/07/08
Message-ID: <dewar.868372427@merv>#1/1
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References: <01bc8b3a$d9161b80$7175b89e@Ken'slaptop.ssd.loral.com>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-07-08T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


kgamble says

<<I do not know why GNAT does not allow 2-byte alignments. There are still

plenty of 16-bit target machines that Ada supports.

>>

Of course GNAT supports 2-byte alignments on a target where 2-byte alignment is natural. Alignment
requirements are highly target dependent!

GNAT does allow misaligned integers, because this is a widely used feature.

An Ada 95 compiler is not required to allow *any* misalignment, and GNAT does not
bother to allow misaligned floating-point for two reasons

One techncail

a) the cost of unaligned fpt access is MUCH higher than unaligned integer access
on a typical machine

One non-techncial

b) none of our customers have ever indicated a desire for this feature

It would not be that hard to do, but would be non-zero work. You could of course build a new configuration file with diminished alignment requirements.