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method: a record layout is only decidable at the table's boundaries

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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Wuu56cE8vJGTBtn1ppsk8v
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sylph-decoder
2026-08-31 03:46:52 +00:00
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@@ -3174,3 +3174,35 @@ residue** — finite, concentrated in the oldest deliveries, and closable by a
one-time backfill. **Same symptom, different prognosis**, and reading their
diagnosis onto my corpus would have implied work that is not needed and missed work
that is.
## A record layout is only decidable at the table's boundaries
`sylpheed-port` found the gap in their own rule: the fourth unchecked thing of mine
to reach their authored data was a **structure** — a field order — not a decoration.
*"The claims that go unchecked are the ones that carry no weight"* did not cover it,
because **a wrong field order looks like a fact**, and a later reader builds on it.
It carried no weight only by luck.
So I built the control that should have existed when I published
`{handler, id, name_ptr}` — and **the obvious version does not work**:
| alignment | records type-plausible |
|---|---|
| published `{id, name_ptr, handler}` | 70/70 |
| shifted −1 | **69/70** |
| shifted +1 | **69/70** |
🔴 **The interior carries no information about phase.** A homogeneous repeated table
has the same field types in sequence — id, name, handler, id, name, handler — so
**any window starting on a field boundary type-checks**. Verifying "every record
looks sane" confirms a wrong alignment just as readily as a right one.
✅ **Only the boundaries discriminate.** A shifted reading must consume a word from
*outside* the table at one end, and that word does not obey the field's type. It is
exactly how the original error surfaced: under the shift, record 0's "handler" was
`0x10000000` — the word sitting before the table. Two-sided and now asserted: the
published alignment survives at both edges, both shifts fail.
📌 **The general rule: for any repeated structure, the evidence for the field order
lives at the first and last record.** Everything in between is compatible with every
phase, and checking it is the reassurance that feels like verification.