Re: adasockets and adatypes

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:

> Note that while I may complain about this from time to time, you're
> still better off than you are with C in the same situation. In C you
> have very little control over representation and in general just
> have to rely on the fact that most C compilers choose to do things
> basically the same way. The one advantage C has in this area is that
> it is at least simpler to take just about any data structure and
> treat it as raw bytes. You can get there in Ada, but it does require
> more work.

I would have thought the ideal non-automated C way of doing this would
be to define a wire format that is convenient for manipulating
endianness (eg, no packing) and manually stuff this on the way
out/unstuff on the way in. Far less dangerous than trying to
manipulate packed data.

Sometimes the transport mechanism forces you to use the same length
for every component -- eg, X properties, where you can choose 1/2/4
byte length and the server byteswaps for you.