struct sockaddr rant

When I look in netinet/in.h on my system it's defined with the type uint32_t. Over here (http://www.beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/multipage/sockaddr_inman.html) it's defined as an unsigned long. Why wouldn't they do what they did with IPv6 addresses and just using an array of chars? If they're already using the assumption that CHAR_BIT is 8 for IPv6, why carry the extra, unnecessary assumption that the implementation provides a 32-bit integer type?

The only reason I can really think of is to ensure portability to platforms that use larger chars, but since they aren't going to work with IPv6 structs, why not redesign IPv4 structs?

And if we're fixing that, why not change the following functions:

uint32_t htonl(uint32_t hostlong);
uint32_t ntohl(uint32_t netlong);

to something like:

void *htonl(void *dest, unsigned long val);
unsigned long ntohl(const void *src);

/end rant

>>23
The hton? and ntoh? "functions" are in reality implemented as C preprocessor macros in most implementations. If you're dissatisfied with the old arpa/ junk, why not just use the BSD stuff?
#define _BSD_SOURCE             /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <endian.h>

uint16_t htobe16(uint16_t host_16bits);
uint16_t htole16(uint16_t host_16bits);
uint16_t be16toh(uint16_t big_endian_16bits);
uint16_t le16toh(uint16_t little_endian_16bits);

uint32_t htobe32(uint32_t host_32bits);
uint32_t htole32(uint32_t host_32bits);
uint32_t be32toh(uint32_t big_endian_32bits);
uint32_t le32toh(uint32_t little_endian_32bits);

uint64_t htobe64(uint64_t host_64bits);
uint64_t htole64(uint64_t host_64bits);
uint64_t be64toh(uint64_t big_endian_64bits);
uint64_t le64toh(uint64_t little_endian_64bits);