[Bug libstdc++/8670] Alignment problem in std::basic_string

["ncm-nospam at cantrip dot org" <gcc-bugzilla at gcc dot gnu dot org>]

------- Additional Comments From ncm-nospam at cantrip dot org  2005-01-24 03:42 -------
I have read the discussion on 17744 and 19163.  Nothing there suggests
that there is any reason to prefer using an __attribute__ over using
the portable, stable, apparently already-working union approach, where
it serves.  The union approach, contrariwise, is manifestly better 
anywhere the __attribute__ feature is broken, which it is said still 
to be, proposed patches notwithstanding.

Furthermore, I have seen no suggestion that the __attribute__ approach
actually enables an alignment optimal for the actual template arguments,
as is easy when using a union.  (That is not to say I don't believe it 
can; it just doesn't appear to have been mentioned.)  The discussion 
seemed to suggest that there was no intention to align adaptively, but 
only pessimistically.  That seems wasteful.

Why should library fixes (specifically, 19495) wait unnecessarily on 
fixes for compiler extensions -- more particularly, extensions unlikely 
to be fixed in the older releases whose libraries we still maintain?  
What am I missing?

(Of course none of this is to suggest that the extension shouldn't
be fixed, too.)

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
OtherBugsDependingO|                            |19495
              nThis|                            |


http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=8670