fixed memory bytes

[kernelmail.jms@gmail.com (julie Sullivan)]

> i have seen many places in  kernel where the variables specially the
> structures should be of  fixed size independent of the architecture. i went
> through the  definitions of them  but dint  get  clearly (or frankly  say
> ...dint get them even a bit) .
>

Hi Mohit

I'm not sure whether we are interpreting your question correctly. Do you
mean

1. you've seen some code in the kernel which you think means the size of a
structure/
variable (and its resulting binary footprint) is set to be the same (in
bytes),
regardless of the architecture, and you are confused about it?

2. you think that there should be a way of fixing the structure/variable
(binary footprint)
size to be the same (in bytes) regardless of the architecture and you are
wondering if this
is possible?

In my (uninformed) opinion (2) is not be possible with the kernel due to
portability
issues - not only do natural word types differ (as others here are
explaining) but you
have no control over what optimization settings the kernel's user might set
in gcc,
for example. This is one of the problems with trying to maintain
closed-source drivers
and other binary code for the kernel, as I understand.

Thanks
Julie
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