On Wed, 2009-08-12 at 07:31 -1000, Mitch Bradley wrote:

Padding a string violates a core principle of property representation, 
namely the "no alignment assumptions" one.  The reason for that 
principle was the fact that alignment needs are not stable across 
processor families, or even within a processor family .

Right, which is why I replied to myself with a different idea :-)

This approach finesses the problem nicely.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Ben.