Re: [gpsd-dev] Half the port problems are solved; seeking help with RTCM2 driver

[Eric S. Raymond]

Bernd Zeimetz <address@hidden>:
> > If so, that is good news.  It means the big-endian version of the weird
> > structure-overlay hack I used is working.  In turn, that means that 
> > the only failures are machines for which the compilers ignore #pragma 
> > pack(1).
> > 
> > I know in a general way how to fix this, but the details will be ugly
> > and difficult.
> 
> Actually it was easy - I've tried it on s390 only, but I guess it fixes sparc
> and s390x, too:
> 
> http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/gpsd.git/commit/?id=a3f6c603400bb07f2da80aab6850e8a4788287a4

Your words imply that once BIG_ENDIAN_WORDS is set properly, the wacky
structure-overlay hack works perfectly on *every architecture*, regardless
of word length or endianness, including the really odd ones like s390.

That code is mad science, a textbook example on several levels of how
*not* to do portability.  And yet, I got it *right*? I am utterly
astounded....
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>