Re: Gnulib: please add a check for _MSC_VER < 1900 (was: stat für win32, patches for lib/stat.c, lib/stat-w32.c)

[Bruno Haible]

[CCing bug-gnulib]

Simon Sobisch wrote:
> Bison's configure.ac nearly starts with:
> 
>   # Gnulib (early checks).
>   gl_EARLY
> 
> I assume this is a general check, can you please add something like the
> following to gl_EARLY?
> 
>   #ifdef _MSC_VER && _MSC_VER < 1900
>   #error Visual Studio is only supported with versions >= 2015 (14.0)
>   #endif
> 
> Thanks,
> Simon

Such a general error is inappropriate, because
  - it is hard to work around,
  - some modules in Gnulib may well work with older compilers, and
    the package may be picking only such modules.

But I can surely improve the expectations in the Gnulib documentation.


2018-09-18  Bruno Haible  <address@hidden>

        doc: Update statement about target platforms.
        Reported by Simon Sobisch.
        * doc/gnulib-intro.texi (Target Platforms): Update. Mention
        restrictions on MSVC versions.

diff --git a/doc/gnulib-intro.texi b/doc/gnulib-intro.texi
index bd68c66..ffb3100 100644
--- a/doc/gnulib-intro.texi
+++ b/doc/gnulib-intro.texi
@@ -104,11 +104,11 @@ we fix bugs when they are reported.  Except that some 
rarely tested
 platforms are also low priority; bug fixes for these platforms can
 take longer.
 
-As of 2016, the list of supported platforms is the following:
+As of 2018, the list of supported platforms is the following:
 
 @itemize
 @item
-glibc systems.  With glibc 2.15 or newer, they are frequently tested.
+glibc systems.  With glibc 2.19 or newer, they are frequently tested.
 @c [Not very relevant in the long term.]
 @c The distributions Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Arch Linux are frequently tested.
 @c CentOS is occasionally tested.
@@ -121,19 +121,21 @@ glibc on Linux is frequently tested.
 glibc on kFreeBSD is rarely tested.
 @end itemize
 @item
-Mac OS X.  In versions 10.11, it's occasionally tested.  In version
+Mac OS X.  In versions 10.13, it's occasionally tested.  In version
 10.5, it's rarely tested.
 @item
-FreeBSD 9.1 or newer is occasionally tested.
+FreeBSD 11.0 or newer is occasionally tested.
 @item
-OpenBSD 5.8 or newer is occasionally tested.
+OpenBSD 6.1 or newer is occasionally tested.
address@hidden
+NetBSD 7.0 or newer is occasionally tested.
 @item
 AIX 7.1 is occasionally tested.
 @item
 Solaris 10 and 11 are occasionally tested.  Solaris 9 and older are rarely
 tested and low priority.
 @item
-Cygwin 2.6 is occasionally tested.  Cygwin 1.7.x is rarely tested.
+Cygwin 2.9 is occasionally tested.  Cygwin 1.7.x is rarely tested.
 @item
 mingw is occasionally tested.  But note that some modules are currently
 unsupported on mingw: @code{mgetgroups}, @code{getugroups}, @code{idcache},
@@ -145,9 +147,9 @@ Only the latest version of mingw is tested; older versions 
are not supported.
 @item
 GNU Hurd 0.7 is rarely tested.
 @item
-NetBSD 7.0 or newer is rarely tested.
address@hidden
 Native Windows, with MSVC as compiler, is rarely tested and low priority.
+The versions of MSVC that are supported are MSVC 14 (Visual Studio 2015) or
+newer.
 @item
 @c There is musl-gcc on Ubuntu, and Alpine Linux 3.3.3.
 musl libc is rarely tested.
@@ -157,7 +159,7 @@ Minix 3.3.0 is rarely tested.
 HP-UX 11.31 is very rarely tested.
 @item
 @c IRIX 6.5 cc has no option for C99 support. You would need to use gcc 
instead.
-IRIX 6.5 is no longer tested.
+IRIX 6.5 is no very rarely tested.
 @item
 OSF/1 5.1 is no longer tested.
 @item