+/** Return the overall offset of value at position pos in bits.
+ *
+ * This requires that the layout of all concerned types is fixed.
+ *
+ * @param ent Any entity of compound type with at least pos initialization values.
+ * @param pos The position of the value for which the offset is requested.
+ */
+int get_compound_ent_value_offset_bits(entity *ent, int pos);
+
+/** Return the overall offset of value at position pos in bytes.
+ *
+ * This requires that the layout of all concerned types is fixed.
+ * Asserts if bit offset is not byte aligned.
+ *
+ * @param ent Any entity of compound type with at least pos initialization values.
+ * @param pos The position of the value for which the offset is requested.
+ */
+int get_compound_ent_value_offset_bytes(entity *ent, int pos);
+
+/** Compute the array indicees in compound graph paths of initialized entities.
+ *
+ * All arrays must have fixed lower and upper bounds. One array can
+ * have an open upper bound. If there are several open bounds, we do
+ * nothing. There must be initializer elements for all array
+ * elements. Uses the link field in the array element entities. The
+ * array bounds must be representable as ints.
+ *
+ * @param ent Any entity.
+ */
+void compute_compound_ent_array_indicees(entity *ent);
+
+/** Sort the values of the compound entity by their overall offset.
+ *
+ * This requires that the layout of all concerned types is fixed.
+ * If the entity has no initialization information the method just
+ * returns. This is needed to dump the entity in a backend.
+ *
+ * @param ent Any entity.
+ */
+void sort_compound_ent_values(entity *ent);
+
+