"Darren Rook" <route66@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> the usage of __attribute__((packed)) on a structure is well
> documented, but I am curious about the ramifications of using this on
> an architecture that requires 16bit or 32bit alignment.
>
> For example:
>
> struct test
> {
> UINT8 field1;
> UINT16 field2;
> UINT8 field3;
> } __attribute__((__packed__));
>
> struct test t;
>
> void handle(UINT16 *val)
> {
> // some code that works with val
> }
>
> handle(&t.field2);
>
> If this code is used on a 16bit architecture that does not implicitly
> allow 8bit addressing, the handle() function may cause an address
> exception because field2 may not be 16bit aligned because of the
> packing.
Yes.
> Is there some method to tell the compiler that *val may not be word
> aligned, so the compiler can generate code to work around the
> alignment issue (instead of assuming the *val will be word aligned)?
No. Avoid writing this sort of code.
Ian
