data alignment

[Chris Torek]

>In article <2309 at umd5.umd.edu> I said
>>an unordered aggregate type: a `bag'.

In article <661 at cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok at quintus.UUCP (Richard
A. O'Keefe) writes:
>Please don't do that.  "bag" is a very common name for the "multiset"
>data type.  (That is, a homogeneous collection like a set, except that
>items can be present more than once.)

[which Dave Pardo also mentioned]

Yes; and indeed, that is what Craig's `bags' were.  I was largely kidding
(as I intended to imply with the remark about a `blender' datatype).

>There is a trivial solution, and a non-trivial solution.

[deleted; both involve ordering structures from largest-to-smallest
types]

It seems not unreasonable, though, to have a language keyword to
tell the compiler to do this for you.  (Please do not suggest
this seriously to the X3J11 committee.  The dpANS describes a
language sufficiently different from C already.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Computer Science, +1 301 454 7163
(hiding out on trantor.umd.edu until mimsy is reassembled in its new home)
Domain: chris at mimsy.umd.edu		Path: not easily reachable