[Bug-gnulib] Re: vasnprintf: drop alloca dependency, tag xsize.h as LGPL

[Simon Josefsson]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

> Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> I'm looking at the snprintf problem in GnuTLS.  vasnprintf is
>> available under LGPL, but it depends on two non-LGPL modules:
>>
>> * xsize: the same file (xsize.h) appear to be available under LGPL in
>>   gettext.  Is there a problem saying LGPL in modules/xsize in gnulib?
>
> No problem. Done. It was an oversight.

Thanks.

>> * alloca:  ...
>>      * modules/vasnprintf (Depends-on): Remove alloca.
>
> In the current state, this patch will break: vasnprintf.c does
>    #include <alloca.h>
> and this will not compile if the 'alloca' module is not provided.

Ah, didn't catch that.

> But actually, in this case as well as in the 'allocsa' module, alloca()
> is only used as a shortcut, if it's available. It makes no sense to use
> the alloca() replacement function since the code is also prepared for
> doing malloc() directly.
>
> What we need is an "alloca if present" module that does the same autoconf
> tests as the alloca module, and uses alloca_.h, but never needs alloca.c -
> and therefore can be under LGPL. (Similar to the fnmatch-gnu / fnmatch-posix
> construction.) Can we call this new module 'alloca-opt' (where 'opt' meant
> "optional" or "optimization")?

Sounds good.  Thanks for adding it.

Regards,
Simon