Rules for structure data types

Programming languages vary in their level of support for structures, and certain rules and conventions are adopted to map the MQI structures consistently in each programming language:

  1. Structures must be aligned on their natural boundaries.
  2. Each field in a structure must be aligned on its natural boundary.
  3. The length of a structure must be a multiple of its boundary alignment.
  4. Where necessary, padding bytes or fields must be added to ensure compliance with the above rules.