OT: Language for the ages

[der Mouse]

>> Er, how big is an int?  a pointer?
> In ANSI C, [...].  A pointer is big enough to hold an address to any
> type.

A pointer is big enough to hold whatever information is necessary to
find and operate on any object of the pointed-to type, plus at least
one special value which does not point to any object of that type.

It may or may not bear any visible relationship to any addresses the
underlying hardware may have, and it may or may not be the same size or
representation as a pointer to some other type.  (Though pointer to
void must be large enough to store any other pointer type without
information loss.  For various reasons, pointer to char ditto.)

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