[asveikau]

Re-read the comment I think. It doesn't say casting a struct pointer. It says putting the members of the struct into network byte order over the wire. I read that as individually serializing each member in a portable, safe way.

Anyway even if you do choose the struct pointer hack (which I do not see advocated here) it can be done relatively well albeit requiring language extensions and a bit of care. Pragmas and attributes to ensure zero padding and alignment between members. No pointer members. Checking sizes and offsets after a read (the hardest part).