> On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Aaron J. Grier wrote:
> 
> : > Now, as far as having a packed attribute flag in cdefs.h, we might
> : > want to consider using "#pragma pack" as opposed to an attribute that
> : > might be required to appear in different places in the struct's
> : > definition on different compilers.  "#pragma pack" is much more widely
> : > supported, and would cause the compile to fail (a good thing!) if
> : > packed structs aren't provided by the compiler.
> :
> : aren't #pragmas are by definition compiler-specific?
> 
> Yes, and that's the point.  If the compiler doesn't support packed structs,
> the code should be uncompilable on that compiler.  (Otherwise you'll end up
> with nondescript errors and crashes thanks to the improper alignment of
> data in the struct.)

I believe the C standard allows compilers to ignore silently any pragma it 
doesn't recognize.  So this doesn't guarantee it will not compile.

R.