Top-level bits/ vs sysdeps/generic/bits/

[Joseph Myers]

On Tue, 10 May 2016, Zack Weinberg wrote:

> > I'm not sure how disposing of sysdeps/generic would work in the case of a 
> > header (non-installed, overridden by some configurations) that's used by 
> > multiple subdirectories.  That's most cases of files in sysdeps/generic 
> > (there are also some installed headers there, and some .c files, and 
> > default ABI test baselines), and you'd need to have another place to put 
> > them (like top-level bits/ is for bits/ headers).
> 
> Without having looked into it at all, couldn't they go in include/?
> (in principle - I'm aware that there are any number of reasons why this
> won't work right now)

The most obvious problem with using include/ would be that it is searched 
*before* all the sysdeps directories, and needs to be searched before them 
because lots of the headers there are wrappers that add internal 
interfaces to installed headers (and some of those installed headers are 
in sysdeps), whereas a replacement for sysdeps/generic needs to be 
searched *after* all the sysdeps directories.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com