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Re: Repeated types in union

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"christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> writes:
> On Dec 13, 12:48 am, Eric Sosman <esos...@ieee-dot-org.invalid> wrote:
>>      Down to nuts and bolts: Is this a theoretical question, or do you
>> have an actual use case in mind?  If the latter, could you describe it?
>> Maybe someone will be able to say "Well, in *that* case it works" or
>> "If you did it *this other* way you wouldn't care."
>
> I bet more than one person has tried to read the representation of a
> float or double as a 32 or 64 bit integer. Last time I tried, I found
> one way that worked on one compiler and failed on another, and another
> way that worked on the other compiler and failed at the first (one
> method was using a union, one was casting the address of a float to
> "pointer to unsigned int"), but I couldn't find any code that worked
> on both compilers. And having code with an #ifdef checking the
> compiler that is used doesn't really inspire confidence in the code
> :-(

So use memcpy().  (I suppose that's not strictly portable to
freestanding implementations, but I'd expect memcpy() to be one of the
things that most freestanding implementations actually provide.)

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
    Will write code for food.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

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Thread

Repeated types in union Edward Rutherford <edward.p.rutherford79@REMOVETHIS.gmail.com> - 2011-12-10 22:06 +0000
  Re: Repeated types in union Jens Gustedt <jens.gustedt@loria.fr> - 2011-12-11 00:11 +0100
  Re: Repeated types in union Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-12-10 18:14 -0500
    Re: Repeated types in union Edward Rutherford <edward.p.rutherford79@REMOVETHIS.gmail.com> - 2011-12-12 20:09 +0000
      Re: Repeated types in union Jens Gustedt <jens.gustedt@loria.fr> - 2011-12-12 23:45 +0100
      Re: Repeated types in union Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-12-12 19:48 -0500
        Re: Repeated types in union "christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> - 2011-12-13 15:17 -0800
          Re: Repeated types in union Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2011-12-13 15:29 -0800
          Re: Repeated types in union James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2011-12-13 18:30 -0500
          Re: Repeated types in union Noob <root@127.0.0.1> - 2011-12-14 17:40 +0100
          Re: Repeated types in union Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-25 13:28 -0800
        Re: Repeated types in union Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-25 15:04 -0800
    Re: Repeated types in union ralph <nt_consulting64@yahoo.net> - 2011-12-12 14:50 -0600
    Re: Repeated types in union Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-25 14:53 -0800
  Re: Repeated types in union Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@dqel.com> - 2011-12-10 22:04 -0800
    Re: Repeated types in union "christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> - 2011-12-12 09:49 -0800
      Re: Repeated types in union Jens Gustedt <jens.gustedt@loria.fr> - 2011-12-12 20:09 +0100
        Re: Repeated types in union "christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> - 2011-12-13 15:10 -0800
          Re: Repeated types in union Jens Gustedt <jens.gustedt@loria.fr> - 2011-12-14 00:24 +0100
          Re: Repeated types in union Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-25 13:46 -0800
      Re: Repeated types in union Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-25 13:42 -0800
    Re: Repeated types in union Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-25 13:36 -0800

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