Re: [PATCH 0/5] {maint} restore C90 compliance

[Paul Eggert]

On 12/13/12 00:36, Akim Demaille wrote:

> Are these assumptions written down somewhere?

Not in one central location, no.  Gnulib's README says
"Currently we assume at least a freestanding C89 compiler, possibly
operating with a C library that predates C89." which I think is
about right for what Gnulib actually assumes (it's pretty
conservative).

Coreutils's README says "you should have a C99-conforming
compiler, due to the use of declarations after non-declaration
statements in several files in src/" which is a bit of an
exaggeration since it needs just C89 with a few C99 features,
notably declarations after statements.

">>    However, it is easy to support pre-standard compilers in most
>> programs, so if you know how to do that, feel free.  If a program you
>> are maintaining has such support, you should try to keep it working.

Yes, this part of the GCS is obsolete and is no longer observed;
even GNU Emacs source started ripping out its pre-C89 support
starting a few years ago.