On Thu, 23 Jun 2011, Alexander Holler wrote:

Sorry, I never wanted to talk about the issue itself (I've already said 
that), I just wanted to bring in some additional clarity for people 
looking at the code.

I think if there is a packed,aligned(4) most people reading that are 
able to imaging how the struct looks like, whereas nothing (without 
packed) might leave doubts which than requires to read compiler docs or 
the generated code, if one searches a problem in that area.

I disagree.  If there are no annotations at all (no packed), there
should be no doubts.  The compiler will add padding wherever it is
needed for internal alignment and perhaps also at the end of the
structure.  Nowhere else.

Alan Stern