Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!us.feeder.erje.net!news.snarked.org!news.linkpendium.com!news.linkpendium.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED!nerds-end From: Seima Rao Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Safe Pointers at the Intermediate Language or Hardware Level Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 14:35:52 +0530 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 24 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <14-02-012@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: miucha.iecc.com 1392229994 91159 64.57.183.58 (12 Feb 2014 18:33:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 18:33:14 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: design, debug, comment Posted-Date: 12 Feb 2014 13:33:14 EST X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:1091 > A safe pointer (cap) is more than 64 bits, and people would refuse to > repeat the pain of the 32- to 64-bit migration. And most programs > violate safety (and language standards, but that's another issue), and > it's hard to make a sale when the customers keep saying "It worked on > Intel!". I have a proposal of my own although, I am not sure about the cons and hence would like to discuss on this forum. i) All pointers have the same type called pointer_t. ii) A pointer_t contains the address of a struct whose contents are the information relevant to what the pointer is pointing to including the type of the element. There are a lot of questions but the one I am worried about currently is whether it is possible to have direct HW support. Sincerely, Seima Rao. [You might want to spend a little while learning about the history of the Burroughs stack architectures. They did (still do, I guess) all of this stuff back in the 1960s. -John]