Don't switch targets for the debate. We were discussing the nonportable problem with overlaying variables with unions.

Creating type declarations that are compiler-neutral is normal practice, but a completely different discussion.

Use version? Yes, of course. That was why I mentioned it already in the subject line. But you get a rather large list of versions quite quickly.

And the issue still stands - exactly how readable will code be, when you have to create multiple strange union constructs depending on what the different compilers requires in the form of padding etc?