Re: disallow direct inclussion of <linux/*.h>

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Sat, Oct 04, 2003 at 06:48:36PM +0000, Robert Millan wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 04, 2003 at 06:16:47PM +0200, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 04, 2003 at 06:05:13PM +0000, Robert Millan wrote:
> > > I think we should disallow direct inclusion of <linux/*.h> in Glibc, any
> > > comments?
> > 
> > This is not an issue related to the Hurd at all.  If you think that this
> > should be done, for whatever reason, you need to talk to the glibc
> > maintainers.
> 
> I know. But this seriously affects portability to non-Linux-based systems,
> which includes GNU/Hurd. 
> 
> I'm really sick of encountering programs that break because of arbitrarily
> including <linux/*.h> stuff. Today I just recieved a patch for a program I
> maintain that adds an #include on <linux/limits.h> just to get the PATH_MAX
> macro. I'm going mad with this kind of stuff.
> 
> If people really want Linux-specific features, let them define _USE_LINUX or
> something like that.

That's all fine, I guess, but affects other systems beside GNU/Hurd just as
well.  If <linux/*.h> headers needs to be protected against inclusion must
be decided by whoever provides these headers.  This would be glibc in your
case.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/