Re: GCC switch to C11 causes many testsuite compiler diagnostics

[Mark Kettenis <mark dot kettenis at xs4all dot nl>]

> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 11:03:34 -0600
> From: Sandra Loosemore <sandra@codesourcery.com>
> 
> Comparing my latest nios2 test results (with Pedro's thread patch) with 
> those from a checkout a couple weeks old, I noticed I had some new 
> ERRORs due to apparent compilation failures.  I tracked this down to the 
> recent change on GCC mainline (r216247) to make the default C dialect 
> GNU11, which enables -Wimplicit-int and -Wimplicit-function-declaration 
> by default.  I started working on a patch to fix the offending 
> testcases, but realized that there are hundreds of them.  :-(
> 
> So, before I invest a lot more time on this, is updating the GDB 
> testsuite to use a more modern C dialect the Right Thing To Do?  I'm 
> also wondering if it's really necessary to support compilers that can't 
> handle function prototypes in the testsuite (not defining PROTOTYPES 
> seems to be the default, in fact).

We've quite deliberately kept around a variety of C dialects and
coding styles to make sure GDB works with whatever style people use.
Having the majority of the tests use K&R style function declarations
is probably not so useful anymore.  But there are some tests that
deliberately use K&_R style code to test whether GDB handles them
properly.  So blind conversion is probably not a good idea.