Is the strict aliasing rule incorrectly specified?

Question

As previously established, a union of the form

union some_union {
    type_a member_a;
    type_b member_b;
    ...
};

with n memb

Answer 1

Here is note 95 and its context:

A postfix expression followed by the . operator and an identifier designates a member of a structure or union object. The value is that of the named member, ⁽⁹⁵⁾ and is an lvalue if the first expression is an lvalue. If the first expression has qualified type, the result has the so-qualified version of the type of the designated member.

⁽⁹⁵⁾ If the member used to read the contents of a union object is not the same as the member last used to store a value in the object, the appropriate part of the object representation of the value is reinterpreted as an object representation in the new type as described in 6.2.6 (a process sometimes called “type punning”). This might be a trap representation.

Note 95 clearly applies to an access via a union member. Your code does not do that. Two overlapping objects are accessed via pointers to 2 separate types, none of which is a character type, and none of which is a postfix expression pertinent for type punning.

This is not a definitive answer...