Drop the K&R requirement from binutils?
Nick Clifton
nickc@redhat.com
Thu Aug 22 06:59:00 GMT 2002
Hi Guys,
Sorry the long delay in responding to this. Guess I chose the wrong
week to go on vacation. :-)
After reading all of the emails posted on this subject here is what
I am proposing we should do:
1. Send an email to the GCC Steering Committee stating that the
binutils project has no objections to dropping its
requirement to be build-able with a K&R compiler, but that it
would like to do so in concert with a similar change in GCC's
policy.
2. Allow the limited use of ISO C features in the mainline
binutils sources (and releases after 2.13). Specifically ISO
would only be allowed in target specific files, not generic
files. (Obviously this would exclude any HP/UX targeted
files).
I can see people objecting to this idea on the grounds that
mixing source dialects would be confusing and goes against the
of having a uniform coding standard and style. So I am opening
to suggestions as to whether this is actually a good idea.
3. Fix any current non-K&R isms in the 2.13 branch, with the
intention that this branch will always be available to allow
bootstrapping in K&R based systems. (Given this, it may not be
necessary to fix K&R problems in gprof, since that is not
needed for bootstrapping). A source tarball can be maintained
on the binutil's web sites for those who do not want to use CVS
to extract a specific branch.
4. At some point in the future, in concert with GCC, change the
requirement that the sources be compilable with a K&R compliant
compiler to the requirement that they be compilable with an ISO
C compiler.
Comments ?
Cheers
Nick
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