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- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!vaxeline.ftp.com!clennox
- From: clennox@vaxeline.ftp.com (Systems Anarchist)
- Subject: Re: Pointer/address reluctance
- Message-ID: <1992Aug17.155553.19704@vaxeline.ftp.com>
- Organization: FTP Software, Inc., Wakefield, MA
- References: <l8kteaINNp2c@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1992Aug14.173255.10548@wyvern.twuug.com> <l8ojbqINN900@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
- Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 15:55:53 GMT
- Lines: 23
-
- In article <l8ojbqINN900@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> linden@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden) writes:
- >I take the point that some folks like to distinguish
- >between pointers and addresses because of unusual hardware
- >that may include capability or offset bits.
-
- This is not simply a matter of pendantry. On the PDP-10, an address
- is 18 bits long. A byte pointer is 36 bits long. They are two
- completely different objects. Of course, if you never use 'address'
- when you really mean 'pointer,' you need never care about
- architectural details like that.
-
- >However, Joe put his finger on the nub of this by pointing
- >out (heh!) that we may simply expand our informal concept
- >of "address" to include these as desired.
-
- You are perfectly free to redefine 'address' to mean 'pointer.' In
- that case, the issue of whether a pointer is an address becomes moot.
- But I'm not sure what exactly you gain from that, besides the ability
- to have two words with the same meaning. The word "address" already
- has a perfectly useful meaning in hardware.
-
- --
- %SYSTEM-F-ANARCHISM, the operating system has been overthrown
-