Heikki Linnakangas <heikki(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> writes:
> Why do we require that t_hoff is MAXALIGNed? ISTM that if the first
> field in a tuple doesn't require alignment, it could be stored
> immediately after the null bitmap, without padding.
Then the intra-tuple alignment would be unpredictable.
The OID trick doesn't work very well either.
regards, tom lane