Re: strdup

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Simon,

> Are there any platforms we care about that lack strdup?
> 
> doc/posix-functions/strdup.texi contains:
> 
> Portability problems fixed by Gnulib:
> @itemize
> @item
> This function is missing on some old platforms.
> @item
> This function has no prototype in @code{<string.h>} on some old platforms.
> @end itemize
> 
> There are a few gnulib modules that depend directly on strdup.  Several
> other gnulib modules appear to use strdup without depending on strdup.
> See grep output below.
> 
> I'm wondering if we could remove the dependencies, trusting that
> maintainers who care about platforms without strdup will add it
> manually.

It is correct that strdup is available everywhere nowadays. However, we
might want to change the 'strdup' module so that it provides a POSIX compliant
function (one that sets errno to ENOMEM when it fails). The module
does not do so currently.

For reasons like this, I find it better if we leave the explicit dependencies
in the module descriptions, and if the people who _don't_ want this module
pass '--avoid=strdup' to gnulib-tool.

Bruno