I have a paged memory this makes accssing all related to a givn sign on the bus occupy a page very efficient (the struct is much larger). I am using the struct below (SDfill added for illustration) with no problems except the addressing does not 'look good'

typedef struct h
{
  U8    SDser[8]  ; // serial number
  U8    SDaddr    ; // address assigned to sign
  U8    SDdips    ; // dipswitch setting
  U8    SDtype    ; // type of sign
  U8    SDwidt    ; // width
  U8    SDhgth    ; // height
  U8    SDfill[256-14] ;  // fill struct to be 256 long
  
    // put this one last
  U8    SDerno    ; // here store error number if FRAM match/update failed.
} SIGN_DESC;

Now, if the [256-14] could be calculated, I could go through the signs by

for (num = min; num < max; num++)
{
  xxx[num]
  ...
}

instead of 'pointer manipulation'.

Again, I do not ask, how to make it work, IT DOES, it would just be more readable if I could automatically make the struct always 256 long and simply use pointer increment. I have evaluated all methods to do this with the struct less than 256, and have chosen one that works.

Erik