[bitc-dev] Raw pointers (aka void*)

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 15:37 +0600, Constantine Plotnikov wrote:
> I am thinking about how JIT compilers, virtual machines, and memory 
> managers (for example garbage collector) can be implemented in BitC.
> 
> I have not found construct that allows raw pointer manipulation or 
> primitives for conversion from number to pointer and back.

Converting from pointer to number is fine. Converting from number to
pointer is simply permitted, and is not needed in a disciplined
implementation.

There are inevitably fragments of an OS that need to be written in
assembly code. In addition, code that manipulates a hardware DMA engine
is, of necessity, trusted to honor the constraints of the language
runtime.

shap