[Mono-devel-list] Prevalence of pointer-integral-pointer casting in mono?

[Peter Colson]

(Hope this appears at the right point in the list...)

Responding to Paolo...

OK, let's accept that the Mono runtime code is not particularly subject
to the problem of casting a pointer to an integral type and back,
expecting it to still be useable as a pointer.

Where does that leave us with respect to the IntPtr and UIntPtr types in
C# and the requirement for these types to be able to hold a pointer and
allow those contents to be treated as a pointer?

If the platform concerned has 128-bit pointers and no native integral
type to hold a pointer, is the ability to support (U)IntPtrs prevented?

Furthermore, am I right in saying that any .Net-style runtime operating
on a platform is going to have recourse to using unsafe calls (at least
internally) requiring the use of (U)IntPtr's, even if C# code written on
that platform makes no use of unsafe code?


Regards,
Peter Colson,
Carringbush Software.