small bitmap.c patch

Christopher R. Hertel crh at nts.umn.edu
Mon Sep 24 08:58:51 GMT 2001


Michael Sweet wrote:
> Jeremy Allison wrote:
:
> > That's why we use packing/unpacking functions and never
> > put structures onto a wire/file.
> > 
> > Writing structures like that is just bad code (IMHO:-).
> 
> Then there is a lot of bad code in Linux, *BSD, etc. :)

Those are OS-level constructs with a known compiler and known target
platforms.  Samba is *portable* across many platforms.  There are
assumptions that we cannot make, which are not even assumptions to an OS
coder.

I have had this kind of thing bite my code, using the Irix C compiler on
an Indy in fact.  I have also used systems with a 2-byte word rather than
a 4-byte word and this also causes trouble if you make assumptions. 

Jeremy is quite right about this[1].  The only thing that C promises is
that casting a structure to the type of the first element of the structure
will work.  That's how I get away with the type casting I do in the binary
tree and linked list code. 

Chris -)-----

[1] Don't you dare quote me out of context, Jeremy!  ;)

-- 
Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
crh at nts.umn.edu              Networking and Telecommunications Services

    Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them
    with your hands...you choose them as your guides, and following
    them you will reach your destiny.  --Carl Schultz




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