Re: making coreutils depend on c99

[Albert Chin]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2006 at 08:17:37PM -0800, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Albert Chin <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 07:51:50PM +0100, Jim Meyering wrote:
> >> So, people building coreutils will have a choice: apply the
> >> c99->c89 patch or install a modern compiler and use that
> >> instead of the vendor-supplied one.
> >
> > There are two issues with C99, compiler support and library support. A
> > survey of all of our platforms wrt C99 support is available at:
> >   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2006-January/msg00275.html
> 
> Thanks for the pointer.  For coreutils, though, the only C99 feature
> that it relies on is statements-before-declarations.  That URL refers
> to the struct hack, which is a different matter.
> 
> The struct hack is also a nice feature to use, but it is more-easily
> configurable via an autoconf test, with a fallback to a trailing array
> member with one element.  Statements-before-declarations isn't that
> easy to conditionalize; you either use it and require it, or you
> don't.

The URL refers to the struct hack not as an exhaustive test to
determine whether or not a compiler supports C99 but as a "probably
good enough" test to determine if a compiler supports C99 for the
results of the survey. Substitute the code in the c99.c file with any
other C99 idiom and the results should be the same.

-- 
albert chin (address@hidden)