Module Name: src
Committed By: jruoho
Date: Thu Dec 16 15:55:41 UTC 2010
Modified Files:
src/share/man/man3: attribute.3
Log Message:
Paraphrase slightly.
To generate a diff of this commit:
cvs rdiff -u -r1.3 -r1.4 src/share/man/man3/attribute.3
Please note that diffs are not public domain; they are subject to the
copyright notices on the relevant files.
Modified files:
Index: src/share/man/man3/attribute.3
diff -u src/share/man/man3/attribute.3:1.3 src/share/man/man3/attribute.3:1.4
--- src/share/man/man3/attribute.3:1.3 Thu Dec 16 10:40:43 2010
+++ src/share/man/man3/attribute.3 Thu Dec 16 15:55:41 2010
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.\" $NetBSD: attribute.3,v 1.3 2010/12/16 10:40:43 jruoho Exp $
+.\" $NetBSD: attribute.3,v 1.4 2010/12/16 15:55:41 jruoho Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2010 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
.\" All rights reserved.
@@ -69,6 +69,10 @@
or
.Vt union ,
all variables therein are also packed.
+The
+.Ic __packed
+macro is often useful when dealing with data that
+is in a particular static format on the disk, wire, or memory.
.It Fn __aligned "x"
The
.Fn __aligned
@@ -95,15 +99,13 @@
Note that when used with functions, structures, or structure members,
.Fn __aligned
can only be used to increase the alignment.
-It is however possible to decrease the alignment
+If the macro is however used as part of a
+.Vt typedef ,
+the alignment can both increase and decrease.
+Otherwise it is only possible to decrease the alignment
for variables and fields by using the
.Ic __packed
macro.
-If
-.Fn __aligned
-is used as part of a
-.Vt typedef ,
-the alignment can both increase and decrease.
The effectiveness of
.Fn __aligned
is largely dependent on the linker.
@@ -134,4 +136,4 @@
should steer clear from non-standard extensions specific
to any given compiler.
Even when portability is not a concern,
-use these macros wisely.
+use these macros sparsely and wisely.
