Re: Endian-specific types

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:45:07PM -0400, Mouse wrote:
 > >> ive toyed with the idea of making types like this: [...endianness...]
 > 
 > Much of the problem with endian-specific types is that - at least in C,
 > and I think in C++ - types describe values, and endianness is not a
 > property of a value; it's a property of a value as serialized into an
 > octet (or other unit smaller than the value) stream.  It does not make
 > sense to talk about the endianness of a value in a CPU register, any
 > more than it makes sense to talk about the bit-endianness of a byte in
 > memory (unless the machine supports bit addressing or otherwise imposes
 > some ordering on the bits within a byte).

But it does make sense to talk about the byte-endianness of a word in
memory, and then hey what do you know, it's a property of a variable.

Types describe variables as well as values, and furthermore types are
more than just sets of legal values. (Otherwise all structures
containing say two ints would be the same type.)

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost