Bit Addressable Architectures

[Rob McMahon]

Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Bit Addressable Architectures
References: <11702 at brl-adm.ARPA> <243 at eagle_snax.UUCP> <2245 at geac.UUCP> <1988Mar6.002518.945 at utzoo.uucp> <2760 at mmintl.UUCP> <17458 at watmath.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: cudcv at titania.warwick.ac.uk (Rob McMahon)
Distribution: 
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK

In article <17458 at watmath.waterloo.edu> ccplumb at watmath.waterloo.edu (Colin Plumb) writes:
>Backwards compatibility?  With a C compiler insulating the user, the
>only change is that sizeof(char) is now 8.

Only change ?  Sounds like a big "only" to me.  I wonder how much code
out there assumes that sizeof(char) == 1, that sizeof("constant string"), 
or sizeof(initialised_char_array) is the same as strlen(xx)+1 ?  Does
malloc now take number of bits required, or char's ?  It's going to
break either "malloc(n * sizeof(s))" or "malloc(strlen(s) + 1)", or does
everybody but me write "malloc((strlen(s)+1)*sizeof(char))" ?

Rob
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Rob McMahon, Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, England