Comment by pkasting
12 hours ago
Green Hills Software's compiler supports more recent versions of C++ (it uses the EDG frontend) and targets some DSPs.
Back when I worked in the embedded space, chips like ZSP were around that used 16-bit bytes. I am twenty years out of date on that space though.
How common is it to use Green Hills compilers for those DSP targets? I was under the impression that their bread was buttered by more-familiar-looking embedded targets, and more recently ARM Cortex.
Dunno! My last project there was to add support for one of the TI DSPs, but as I said, that's decades past now.
Anyway, I think there are two takeaways:
1. There probably do exist non-8-bit-byte architectures targeted by compilers that provide support for at-least-somewhat-recent C++ versions
2. Such cases are certainly rare
Where that leaves things, in terms of what the C++ standard should specify, I don't know. IIRC JF Bastien or one of the other Apple folks that's driven things like "twos complement is the only integer representation C++ supports" tried to push for "bytes are 8 bits" and got shot down?