Re: c/10360: __alignof__(double) answer 8

[Richard Henderson]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 06:06:44AM +0100, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
> It would be interesting to know in what sense the alignment is 
> 'preferred'.

In that it takes one less cycle to load that way?  In that that's
how data gets aligned which isn't constrained by the ABI?

> Shouldn't this either be fixed as Frederic suggests, or the documentation
> be changed so that instead of saying 'preferred' it says 'misleading and
> largely useless'

And indeed, that's what we ALREADY say, except you didn't read it.
To wit:

        Some machines never actually require alignment; they allow
        reference to any data type even at an odd addresses. For
        these machines, __alignof__ reports the recommended alignment
        of a type.


r~