--- libxds.tex 2001/08/09 14:12:00 1.9
+++ libxds.tex 2001/08/09 14:59:07 1.10
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
% -*- mode: LaTeX; fill-column: 75; -*-
%
-% $Id: libxds.tex,v 1.9 2001/08/09 14:12:00 simons Exp $
+% $Id: libxds.tex,v 1.10 2001/08/09 14:59:07 simons Exp $
%
\documentclass[a4paper,10pt,pointlessnumbers,bibtotoc]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[dvips,xdvi]{graphicx}
@@ -563,7 +563,17 @@
\end{verbatim}
\end{quote}
-In order to encode an instance of this structure, we first write an
+Some readers might wonder why the structure is defined using these weird
+data types rather than the familiar ones like \textsf{int}, \textsf{long},
+etc. The reason is that these data types have an undefined size. An
+\textsf{int} variable will have, say, 32 bits when compiled on the average
+Unix machine, but when the same source is compiled on a 64-bit machine,
+like TRUE64 Unix, it will have a size of 64 bit. That is a problem when
+those structures have to be exchanged between entirely different systems,
+because the structures are binary incompatible --- something even XDS
+cannot remedy.
+
+Anyway, in order to encode an instance of this structure, we write an
encoding engine:
\begin{quote}
@@ -1054,6 +1064,7 @@
through minimum inconvenience.
\subsection{What are those xds\_int-something types good for?}
+\label{xds int stuff}
The XDS library uses the data types \textsf{xds\_int32\_t}, etc. rather
than \textsf{int}. This is necessary because we need to have a definive
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