Implementation dependencies are in general undesirable, but
inter-language linkages of the kind being talked about here are always
and ineluctably doubly implementation-dependent.
Consider now the PL/I statements
declare pbs32_sysnull_image
static aligned bit(32) initial('00000000'b4) ;
declare p pointer,
pbs32 aligned bit(32) based(addr(p)),
addr builtin ;
pbs32 = pbs32_sysnull_image ;
This kind of brutal data-type punning, common in assembly language, is
anathema to little old ladies of both sexes in statement-level
languages. It nevertheless has its uses; it is direct and efficient,
and, whether written in C or PL/I, it will not be optimized away.
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
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