missing functions in newlib

[J. Johnston]

chris wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I was suprised to not find in the FAQ "XXX is missing from newlib", so I
> shall have to ask it here.
> 

There are lots of things that are "not" in newlib.  Adding all of them would
be a thankless exercise and make for a very large FAQ.  The
library is essentially ANSI C90 plus a large variety of extensions.

> I am using newlib as it seems to be the C library used in cygwin, and use it
> to convert linux/bsd programs to windows.
> 
> The two things I find most often are missing are <err.h> (and the functions
> in it) which seem to simply allow pretty-printing error messages, and itoa,
> which turns an integer into an ascii string.
> 
> Is there some specific reason (not wanting to just add every non-standard
> function) these aren't in newlib? Would adding them simply involve finding /
> writing correct versions? Could they just be lifted whole-sale from a
> licence compatable C library?
> 

There is no specific reason these functions are missing other than they are not
ANSI, no one has provided them, and no one has specifically requested them.  Please feel
free to add BSD-licensed code.  Newlib does not add GPL'd or LGPL'd code in the shared directories.
Remember to hide extensions without underscores in std headers using #ifndef __STRICT_ANSI__.

-- Jeff J.