Re: [RFC] Documentation about unaligned memory access

Alan Cox
2007-11-23T01:33:56Z

> Most architectures are unable to perform unaligned memory accesses. Any
> unaligned access causes a processor exception.

Not all. Some simply produce the wrong answer - thats oh so much more
exciting.

> You may be wondering why you have never seen these problems on your own
> architecture. Some architectures (such as i386 and x86_64) do not have this
> limitation, but nevertheless it is important for you to write portable code
> that works everywhere.

Its usually faster if you don't misalign on x86 as well.

Alan