[RFA/sparc] pb doing next over struct-return function

Richard Earnshaw rearnsha@gcc.gnu.org
Tue Nov 23 12:06:00 GMT 2004


On Tue, 2004-11-23 at 11:29, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 09:33:06 +0100 (CET)
> > From: Mark Kettenis <kettenis@gnu.org>
> > CC: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
> > 
> > Return non-zero if the instruction at PC is an "unimp" instruction.
> >        ^^^^^^^^                              ^
> > 
> >    +  else
> >    +    {
> >    +      /* There is no debugging information for this function to
> >    +         help us determine whether this function returns a struct
> >    +         or not.  So we rely on another heuristic which is to check
> >    +         the instruction at the return address and see if this is
> >    +         a "unimp" instruction.  If it is, then it is struct-return
> >    +         function.  */
> > 
> > an "unimp" instruction.
> >  ^                                           ^
> 
> Really?  I'm not a native English speaker, but I think "a unimp" is
> correct.  It's like "a university", isn't it?
> 
> Perhaps "the unimp instruction" would be better, though, since it's a
> name of a specific instruction.

Generally 'an' is used if the sound from the 'u' is as in 'um', but 'a'
is used if it is as in 'you'.  So, 'an umbrella', but 'a uniform'.

The example above is difficult to rule on, because the mnemonic isn't a
real word.  Is the pronunciation as a single word, or as a set of
letters (u-n-i-m-p)?  If the former it's probably 'an'; for the latter
it's probably 'a'.  Since that's a matter of choice, then it's hard to
ever be 100% accurate in this case.

Confused?  You should be...  This is English we are talking about...

R.



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