Re: _GL_INLINE issue

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> > what was the motivation of changing
> > 'static inline' to 'static' - other than "it's not needed"
> 
> Partly so that the relevant modules wouldn't require AC_C_INLINE.

This is a bit backwards: In gnulib, we usually write the C code first,
and then put together the .m4 file and the module description so that
it fits with the C code. Not the other way around.

> I wanted to work around issues when gcc -fno-inline was used.
> This was during the reorganization when we got Gnulib to work 
> better with extern inline and C11.

OK, so I guess this is not a sufficient reason for eliminating all current
and future uses of 'static inline', from dfa.c to regexec.c.

Ben Pfaff wrote:
> For functions defined in .c files, I like to avoid "static inline"
> because "inline" prevents the compiler from warning me when a function
> is unused, which I often find to be a useful warning.

Good point.

And debuggability with gdb. Single-stepping through inline functions is
quite confusing. On the other hand, for debugging, I most often compile
with "-O0 -ggdb" anyway, which inhibits the inlining even of 'static inline'
functions.

Bruno