volatile issue - repost
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What you have said is misleading you are just talking about a compiler that use the clause that says
Quote:
Various implementations of C and C++ reserve 8, 9, 16, 32, or 36 bits for the storage of a byte
So a byte in your case is defined as 16 bits and that is why the uint8_t type doesn't exist for you. So yes a uint32_t in your case would be 2 bytes (because your byte is 16 bits) and all you have proven is what we have long argued to the standards committee that C has butchered the word byte it should have been called register. I mean all you have is a 16 bit register that can't break to 8 bits that is creating the problem. I have always wanted to see a C compiler with 9 bit bytes because I think that would make for some real fun :-) So lets reword it uint32_t is always 4 x uint8_t assuming both are implemented because we have to avoid using the word byte because it's been butchered in C.
In vino veritas
I don't think "register" is a good term to describe a system's smallest addressable storage unit. If you don't like "byte", I'd suggest "smallest addressable storage unit" would be a precise term. In any case, I was responding to the claim that the size of a uint32_t is "set in stone" at four bytes for all conforming implementations, which a reasonable person might interpret as saying that sizeof (uint32_t) is required to be 4. I think it's rather silly that the Standard defines no category of programs between Strictly Conforming programs, a category so narrow as to be almost useless, and Conforming programs, a category so broad as to be essentially meaningless, and only defines two categories of implementations, either of which would be allowed (because of the "One Program" loophole) to behave in arbitrary fashion when given almost any program. If the Standard sought to actually categorize things usefully, separating out common-integer-size implementations from weird-integer-size implementations would make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, the authors of the Standard seem to go out of their way to avoid suggesting that some implementations should be considered inferior to others.