Nov.06.2018 -- CAlive to introduce bounce structure

[Rick C. Hodgin]

CAlive will introduce a bounce structure, which is an expanded reflection of a bitfield struct, one where the bitfield values are extracted and expanded to a full version of the struct, allowing for an expression of the compacted bitfields into native types.  The ability will exist to populate a bounce struct from a bitfield struct, and to populate a bitfield struct from a bounce struct using simple assignment.

    struct SBitStruct

    {

        s32   hour       : 5;

        s32   minute     : 6;

        s32   dbl_second : 5;

        // Total 16-bits, or two bytes

    }

    // To use in code:

    SBitStruct bTypes [|bounce|];

    SBitStruct bBits;

    // The [|bounce|] definition casks creates a typed structure

    // representing the types in the bitfield structure.

    // Like this:

    struct

    {

        s32   hour;

        s32   minute;

        s32   dbl_second;

        // Total 96-bits, or 12 bytes

    }

    // Populate either one as normal

    bTypes.hour       = 12;

    bTypes.minute     = 38;

    bTypes.dbl_second = 14;

    bBits.hour        = 12;

    bBits.minute      = 38;

    bBits.dbl_second  = 14;

    // To transfer one to the other:

    bTypes = bBits;

    bBits  = bTypes;

    // Likewise for pointers:

    SBitStruct* bTypesPtr [|bounce|];

    SBitStruct* bBitsPtr;

    *bTypesPtr = *bBitsPtr;    // Simple assignment bits into bounced structure

    *bBitsPtr  = *bTypesPtr;   // Simple assignment bounced structure back into bits

In this way, a simple expansion and collapse of the bitfield structs and expanded type structs will occur through the bounce.

-- 

Rick C. Hodgin