Apologizes for the direct reply.
On 7/5/05, DUBOST Brice <dubost@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Oivind wrote:
> > I notice that bit fields are used in many of the structs, as for
> > example from en50221_hlci.h;
> >
> > struct en50221_pmt_object {
> > unsigned ca_pmt_tag: 24;
> > uint8_t *asn_1_length;
> > unsigned ca_pmt_list_mgmt: 8;
> > unsigned program_number: 16;
> > unsigned reserved_1: 2;
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > };
> >
> >
> > What exactly is the benefit of this?
> >
>
> Because the object come like this
> Dvb objct tries to use less data as possible.
>
> For example
> http://www.bc.groteck.ru/pdf-standard-specifications/multiplexing/dvb-vbi/en301775.v1.2.1.pdf
Well, yes, an en50221 pmt object looks like that.
But no, that is not the reason, because that object is again decoded
and reassembled as a binary stream by the driver before it is sent to
the hardware. Using bit fields to create binary streams would be no
good because of endian and compiler differences.
Oivind
