Re: AC_TYPE_SIGNAL obsolete?

[Eric Blake]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

According to Bob Friesenhahn on 6/6/2008 8:42 PM:
| On Fri, 6 Jun 2008, Eric Blake wrote:
|
|> Any objections to making AC_TYPE_SIGNAL obsolete (with the
|> recommendation of
|> replacing RETSIGTYPE with void in old code), since even C89 requires
|> signal
|> handlers to return void?
|
| Why are you interested in making this change?  Is the macro causing
| problems?  Try as we might, we can't change history and so this macro
| may be useful on many systems which are still in use.

Marking a macro obsolete does not mean that existing projects have to
remove it, nor that we will break its behavior.  Rather, it means that new
projects don't have to worry about needing to use it (if you assume C89,
which most projects do these days, then AC_TYPE_SIGNAL is a waste of
./configure time).  In other words, it can simplify maintenance to realize
this is no longer a relevant porting concern.

My motivating example is the gnulib module c-stack, which blindly assumes
that signal handlers with void return types can be installed rather than
worrying about using RETSIGTYPE; no one has complained about being unable
to compile it on their platforms.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Cygwin)
Comment: Public key at home.comcast.net/~ericblake/eblake.gpg
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkhKBdkACgkQ84KuGfSFAYARLgCgsiA0vNQ75KJNlgQQsxEtfZpO
DnMAn0ie7IRZd3M007/jZpkm5a7/8Lx/
=3p+q
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----