diff -r 51016ff7f8c9 Include/unicodeobject.h
--- a/Include/unicodeobject.h	Sun Mar 25 22:41:16 2012 -0400
+++ b/Include/unicodeobject.h	Tue Mar 27 13:13:21 2012 +0200
@@ -291,6 +291,7 @@ typedef struct {
     PyObject_HEAD
     Py_ssize_t length;          /* Number of code points in the string */
     Py_hash_t hash;             /* Hash value; -1 if not set */
+    wchar_t *wstr;              /* wchar_t representation (null-terminated) */
     struct {
         /*
            SSTATE_NOT_INTERNED (0)
@@ -300,7 +301,7 @@ typedef struct {
            If interned != SSTATE_NOT_INTERNED, the two references from the
            dictionary to this object are *not* counted in ob_refcnt.
          */
-        unsigned int interned:2;
+        unsigned char interned:2;
         /* Character size:
 
            - PyUnicode_WCHAR_KIND (0):
@@ -328,24 +329,23 @@ typedef struct {
              * all characters are in the range U+0000-U+10FFFF
              * at least one character is in the range U+10000-U+10FFFF
          */
-        unsigned int kind:3;
+        unsigned char kind:3;
         /* Compact is with respect to the allocation scheme. Compact unicode
            objects only require one memory block while non-compact objects use
            one block for the PyUnicodeObject struct and another for its data
            buffer. */
-        unsigned int compact:1;
+        unsigned char compact:1;
         /* The string only contains characters in the range U+0000-U+007F (ASCII)
            and the kind is PyUnicode_1BYTE_KIND. If ascii is set and compact is
            set, use the PyASCIIObject structure. */
-        unsigned int ascii:1;
+        unsigned char ascii:1;
         /* The ready flag indicates whether the object layout is initialized
            completely. This means that this is either a compact object, or
            the data pointer is filled out. The bit is redundant, and helps
            to minimize the test in PyUnicode_IS_READY(). */
-        unsigned int ready:1;
+        unsigned char ready:1;
     } state;
-    wchar_t *wstr;              /* wchar_t representation (null-terminated) */
-} PyASCIIObject;
+} __attribute__((packed)) PyASCIIObject;
 
 /* Non-ASCII strings allocated through PyUnicode_New use the
    PyCompactUnicodeObject structure. state.compact is set, and the data
@@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ typedef struct {
     char *utf8;                 /* UTF-8 representation (null-terminated) */
     Py_ssize_t wstr_length;     /* Number of code points in wstr, possible
                                  * surrogates count as two code points. */
-} PyCompactUnicodeObject;
+} __attribute__((packed)) PyCompactUnicodeObject;
 
 /* Strings allocated through PyUnicode_FromUnicode(NULL, len) use the
    PyUnicodeObject structure. The actual string data is initially in the wstr
@@ -370,7 +370,7 @@ typedef struct {
         Py_UCS2 *ucs2;
         Py_UCS4 *ucs4;
     } data;                     /* Canonical, smallest-form Unicode buffer */
-} PyUnicodeObject;
+} __attribute__((packed)) PyUnicodeObject;
 #endif
 
 PyAPI_DATA(PyTypeObject) PyUnicode_Type;