On 1/27/25 13:34, Frederick Virchanza Gotham via Std-Proposals wrote:
> Tiago wrote:
>>
>> So what is the point of this?
>
> I want C++26 to explicitly state: "All pointer types are
> intercompatible -- they all have the same size and representation",
> which would allow code like:
>
> char c;
> long double *p = &c;
> char *p2 = p;
> *p2 = 'a';
>
> The main use for this would be in allowing data to be misaligned in
> memory.

That doesn't follow. Practically speaking, pointers are currently
"intercompatible", as you define it above, but that doesn't mean the
data is allowed to be misaligned.

And proper data alignment is an important requirement regardless of
pointer representation. It has significant performance and correctness
implications. Relaxing this requirement (by default, barring some
exceptions like intrinsics) is a wrong thing to do and IMO never going
to happen.