Ian Lance Taylor wrote: > ". ." <pkejjy@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> (In other words, I think the default for x86(-64) should be packed, >> but I'll leave it to others to have that flame war.) > > The ABI can not change. Changing that now would prevent linking object > files compiler by different compilers together safely, as they would use > different offsets for accessing struct fields. > > In any case, different programs have different tradeoffs here. Some > programs prefer the faster access of aligned fields, some programs > prefer the reduced memory usage of packed fiels. No single default can > be satisfactory for everybody, but nevertheless there must be a default. Of course if the code is C++, there is no reason to worry about linking object files from different compilers. It is currently a pipe dream.
