Re: memset and host char requirement

["Joseph S. Myers" <joseph at codesourcery dot com>]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, Paulo J. Matos wrote:

> My target has 16bit chars.

As I explained before, support for such targets is extremely limited and 
bitrotten (this applies whether it is BITS_PER_UNIT, CHAR_TYPE_SIZE or 
both that are not 8) and a large amount of work, and global GCC expertise 
and vision for what internal interfaces should look like in the context of 
such bytes, will be required to remove assumptions about target bytes 
being 8 bits before such a port can work.  It would not surprise me if a 
series of more (possibly much more) than 100 large patches to the 
target-independent compiler is needed to make such targets work properly.

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-03/msg00445.html

It's not particular useful to raise questions about "why" something is 
broken in such a case, as it's simply generally not been a design 
consideration at all; rather, propose a clear definition of a relevant 
interface that is meaningful for such a case, with a complete patch making 
all the code follow that definition.  And repeat 100 (possibly many more) 
times until all interfaces are properly defined for general target byte 
sizes.  And keep a careful watch on all patches going through gcc-patches 
for anything hardcoding new assumptions about target byte size.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com