Some issues to resolve with XFree 4.0 yet

[Gabriel Paubert]

On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Franz Sirl wrote:

> Hmm, I was thinking about adding __attribute__((little_endian)) and
> __attribute__((big_endian)) to further describe variables. This should give
> us optimum optimization on various platforms. Even things like:
>
> union {
>          unsigned long little_var __attribute__((little_endian));
>          unsigned long big_var __attribute__((big_endian));
> }
>
> should be possible then.

Indeed, but I was considering it as a later step. I have the feeling that
adding a builtin would be simpler and would allow to build the necessary
infrastructure for attribute support with minimal intermediate breakage
(perhaps by implementing it only on some architectures at first).

Furthermore, the subject of adding this attribute has appeared on a quite
regular basis on GCC mailing lists in the last few years and nothing has
ever been done about it AFAICT. Perhaps a different strategy through
builtin functions would get things started, that's why I'm suggesting it.

	Gabriel.


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