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Annotation of coherent/a/usr/man/ALL/alignment, revision 1.1.1.1

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                      3: alignment                   Definition                  alignment
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                      8: Alignment refers  to the  fact that some  microprocessors require
                      9: the address of a data entity  to be aligned to a numeric boundary
                     10: in memory  so that  _a_d_d_r_e_s_s modulo  _n_u_m_b_e_r equals zero.   For ex-
                     11: ample,  the M68000  and  the PDP-11  require that  an integer  be
                     12: aligned along an even address, i.e., _a_d_d_r_e_s_s%22==00.
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                     14: Generally  speaking, alignment  is a  problem  only if  you write
                     15: programs in assembly  language.  For C programs, COHERENT ensures
                     16: that  data  types are  aligned  properly  under foreseeable  con-
                     17: ditions.  You  should, however, beware of  copying structures and
                     18: of casting a pointer to cchhaarr  to a pointer to a ssttrruucctt, for these
                     19: could trigger alignment problems.
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                     21: Processors react differently to an alignment problem.  On the VAX
                     22: or the i8086, it causes a  program to run more slowly, whereas on
                     23: the M68000 it causes a bus error.
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                     25: ***** See Also *****
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                     27: data types, definitions
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                     64: COHERENT Lexicon                                           Page 1
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