How do I keep pointers aligned?

[Jeffery Small]

henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <12879 at s.ms.uky.edu> sean at ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
>>Lint tells me I have possible pointer alignment problems.
>>s = (STUFF *) malloc((unsigned) sizeof(STUFF));

>The problem is that lint has no way of knowing that the `char *' returned
>by malloc is sufficiently well-aligned for use as a `STUFF *'.  In fact,
>it is -- that's part of the specs of malloc -- but lint doesn't know that.
>In practice, "possible pointer alignment problem" just means "better look
>twice to make sure this is right".  It doesn't mean "this is wrong".

Something I have often wondered:

Is there a good reason why lint hasn't been modified to understand the
"specs" of malloc and eliminate these unnecessary warnings?  Does building
such knowledge into lint violate its design philosophy?
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