Un-alignment in structures

[Norman Diamond]

> > Even on machines that "can't do" unaligned integers, this program
> > will probably run without "error" and will give some garbage for
> > output.
> Wrong.  On most machines that don't support unaligned integers, you
> will get a signal and a core dump.

I don't know which "most" is correct, but have used examples of both
kinds of machines.  The former are enough of a pain to be cause for a
lot of care.  (For that matter, so are the latter.)

> > ...After all, what does it gain a man
> > to save a millisecond of his computer's time if he loses an hour
> > of his own time thereby?
> Sometimes it saves his successor from spending many hours figuring out
> how to get that millisecond out.  Yes, Virginia, some programs do have
> to run fast, and few are the worse for a speed improvement.

If you have to remove one millisecond from a tight loop that has to run
in 50 milliseconds, you really should use assembly.

-- 

   Norman Diamond

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