[llvm-dev] RFC: On non 8-bit bytes and the target for it

[Jeroen Dobbelaere via llvm-dev]

> From: llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> On Behalf Of JF Bastien via
[..]
> Is it relevant to any modern compiler though?
> 
> I strongly agree with Tim. As I said in previous threads, unless people will have
> actual testable targets for this type of thing, I think we shouldn’t add
> maintenance burden. This isn’t really C or C++ anymore because so much code
> assumes CHAR_BIT == 8, or at a minimum CHAR_BIT % 8 == 0, that we’re
> supporting a different language. IMO they should use a different language, and
> C / C++ should only allow CHAR_BIT % 8 == 0 (and only for small values of
> CHAR_BIT).

We (Synopsys ASIP Designer team) and our customers tend to disagree: our customers do create plenty of cpu architectures
with non-8-bit characters (and non-8-bit addressable memories). We are able to provide them with a working c/c++ compiler solution.
Maybe some support libraries are not supported out of the box, but for these kind of architectures that is acceptable. 
(Besides that, llvm is also more than just c/c++)

Greetings,

Jeroen Dobbelaere