From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 38346 invoked by alias); 10 Apr 2015 17:34:03 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org Received: (qmail 38333 invoked by uid 89); 10 Apr 2015 17:34:03 -0000 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; auth=none X-Virus-Found: No X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SPF_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-HELO: usevmg21.ericsson.net Received: from usevmg21.ericsson.net (HELO usevmg21.ericsson.net) (198.24.6.65) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.93/v0.84-503-g423c35a) with (AES256-SHA encrypted) ESMTPS; Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:34:02 +0000 Received: from EUSAAHC007.ericsson.se (Unknown_Domain [147.117.188.93]) by usevmg21.ericsson.net (Symantec Mail Security) with SMTP id D4.2D.17241.2C6A7255; Fri, 10 Apr 2015 12:32:35 +0200 (CEST) Received: from [142.133.110.232] (147.117.188.8) by smtp-am.internal.ericsson.com (147.117.188.95) with Microsoft SMTP Server id 14.3.210.2; Fri, 10 Apr 2015 13:33:59 -0400 Message-ID: <55280987.5060107@ericsson.com> Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:34:00 -0000 From: Simon Marchi User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: CC: , Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/7] Support reading/writing memory on architectures with non 8-bits bytes References: <1428522979-28709-1-git-send-email-simon.marchi@ericsson.com> <83d23dg1bd.fsf@gnu.org> <55269D1A.3080902@ericsson.com> <83vbh5e04f.fsf@gnu.org> <5526E87D.3020109@ericsson.com> <838ue0v1vy.fsf@gnu.org> <5527F3BC.3030005@ericsson.com> <1476603C-A0AA-42D4-B432-CDCF06901AF4@dell.com> In-Reply-To: <1476603C-A0AA-42D4-B432-CDCF06901AF4@dell.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-IsSubscribed: yes X-SW-Source: 2015-04/txt/msg00400.txt.bz2 >> I understand your concern. The term "byte" is probably set in stone as = 8-bits for pretty >> much everybody, so trying to redefine it as variable length would probab= ly cause more harm >> than good. >=20 > But if you work on several platforms, you would reasonably be expected to= understand each of them. Debugging on A, B, and C with a working knowledg= e only of A isn=92t very realistic. > > 8 bits =3D=3D byte is certainly the predominant modern usage, but it hasn= =92t always been that way and even today it apparently isn=92t quite univer= sal. GCC used to support architectures that did not do 8-bit byte memory a= ddressing, though that capability seems to have faded away in the past coup= le of years. I guess you are referring to older architectures with 6, 7, 9, 12, 36-bits = or other byte size. I'd like to make it clear that our goal is not to support that = kind of bytes that is not a multiple of 8 bits. That would be incredibly more comp= licated.