Re: size of CRCs in module versions

[Kai Germaschewski]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, David Mosberger wrote:

> What's the point of using "unsigned long" for storing module version
> CRCs?  As far as I can see, the CRCs are 32 bits in size, so using u32
> would be more appropriate (and would avoid wasting space on 64-bit
> platforms).

You're right that 32 bits would be enough to hold the CRC. However, we do 
not yet know the checksum at compile time, so the trick I came up with is 
to use the linker to fill in the crcs afterwards, using assignment to 
absolute values. So while the crcs appear to be numbers to the C code, 
they are handled like addresses from the linker side, and things would 
most likely go badly wrong if the sizes aren't equal, though I have to 
admit I didn't try.

--Kai