Re: [Chicken-users] More on aliasing.

[Anthony Carrico]

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Peter Keller wrote:

> Well, in machine generated C code, I can see why the current method was
> used. Since a larger code generates the C code, it knows when type problems
> might occur and you get a warning at the meta level.

True for warnings, but then only the meta compiler really knows what is
going on. Why not pass the information down to the C compiler too, so it
can be used for optimizations?

Given the readability advantages, the only reason I can think of to be
worried is if the compiler might stop using registers. Do you know if this
is a problem? Can gcc put a register sized union into a register (assuming
nothing needs the union's address)?

> But in human written
> code, people often use the struct+union method for this just to keep
> everything straight both in the code and the mind.

This would be useful for reading the Chicken compiler's code for the same
reasons.

  -Tony Carrico