[Tutor] what is 'doubleword alignment'?

[Albert-Jan Roskam]

Hello,

What is 'doubleword alignment'? It is used in the following sentence: "Fill up the buffer with the correctly encoded numeric and string values, taking care of blank padding and doubleword alignment." 

I know that the buffer is comprised of variables of 8-bytes, or multiples thereof, each. Numeric variables are 8 bytes, char vars are at least 8 bytes. For example, a 10-byte value is 'ceiled' to 18 bytes. This is done with padding (spaces, I think). But the aligment part...?

TIA

Cheers!!

Albert-Jan



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/attachments/20110716/d55dcd3a/attachment.html>