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Re: [Tinycc-devel] Patch: Permit certain pointer assignments (grischka-2
From: |
David A. Wheeler |
Subject: |
Re: [Tinycc-devel] Patch: Permit certain pointer assignments (grischka-2005-09-25 case_7) |
Date: |
Thu, 03 May 2007 11:06:47 -0400 (EDT) |
BTW, the grischka-2005-09-25 case_7 (that I just posted) is by no means
"perfect". It turns an error into a warning, and that has two potential
problems:
* It warns about stuff it perhaps should just accept outright (as gcc does),
even if the C standard says supporting it isn't required.
* It merely warns about stuff it should perhaps reject outright.
But figuring out what it should reject outright, and what it should accept
outright, is non-trivial; I frankly wasn't sure what should be in those other
categories. I started to examine the cdoe to figure out what to place in those
other categories, and quickly came to realize why grischka did it this way. So
I ended up doing it his way: warn but accept it all.
I think the right first step is this patch, which warns yet accepts lots of
constructs. Once there's some experience with this patch, we can add additions
either way (to remove warnings, or reconstrain some constructs as errors again).
Most importantly, with this patch, code that wouldn't compile before (like
constructs in gcc's source) will compile now. In my mind, what's most
important is accepting existing, widely-used code that ALREADY compiles
elsewhere. Accepting "illegal" code with a warning isn't so bad (compilers are
allowed to accept extensions anyway) and extraneous warnings are merely
annoying. But failing to compile existing widely-used code is deadly.
--- David A. Wheeler