[PD-dev] strings

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006, Martin Peach wrote:

> Yes, and it's also easier to limit strings to word (16-bit) lengths, 
> while 8-bit is too short. So a t_string would look like:
> typedef struct _string /* pointer to a string */
> {
>  unsigned short s_length; /* length of string in bytes */
>  unsigned char *s_data; /* pointer to 1st byte of string */
> } t_string;

If you're not compiling in 16-bit mode, then there will be 2 or 6 bytes 
between the first and second field, so that the second field can be 
aligned to a word boundary, supposing that the struct as a whole is itself 
aligned to a word boundary. (By word, I strictly mean something that is 
the same size as a pointer.)

What I mean is that it's useless to not use the whole a length field that 
is not the same size as the pointer field, if you have only those two 
fields. If you have more than two fields, then you can put several short 
fields in the space of a word (2 or 4).

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
| Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada