Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/intrinsic-types.html#faq-26.6

"""
The C++ language guarantees there are no bits between two bytes. This means 
every bit in memory is part of a byte. If you grind your way through memory 
via a char*, you will be able to see every bit.
"""

I find it hard to believe you could even enforce that in a language. I'm 
quite sure there are architectures where C can run that have memory 
unaddressable by a char*. Certainly there are bits in floating point 
registers (or even regular CPU registers) that many architectures don't give 
you addresses for. Memory in memory-mapped panes (i.e., addressing more bits 
than you have address space for) would also seem to be outlawed.

"""
The C++ language guarantees there are no bits that are part of two distinct 
bytes. This means a change to one byte will never cause a change to a 
different byte.
"""

I wish he'd actually cited the part of the standard that says things like 
this. It would be interesting to know how it was actually worded.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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