On Tue, 2008-09-09 at 02:14 +0200, Harald Geyer wrote:
> > > everything is gnu, last time I checked I think (well it's quite some
> > > time ago) AIX cc didn't like that and why would anybody want to write
> > > unportable code?

BTW I can't remeber anyone mentioning "runs on AIX" and I seriously
doubt that olsrd would run on AIX just as it is - the ioctl()s and their
parameters for route manipulation and other similar low-level
socket/fd/... operations are probably different enough that we need
another preprocessor symbol.
So IMHO we don't have an AIX port anyways.
 
> > IBM should then fix their C compiler IMHO.
> > And details and facts please (and into the docs). Just because the
> > grapevine tells me something about some old compilers somewhere[0] ...
> 
> Well, that might be difficult right now...

So the problem doesn't actually exist.

> Anyway: I checked and block local declaration is definitely supported
> by ANSI C so I guess that's not an issue.

For "C programming", I assume at least ANSI C + a somewhat sane C
library (read: adhering to POSIX/SUSv3/.... POSIX and SUSv3 as such are
not sane. <rant>Sorry, standardization folks, there are lots of insane
stuff in there. Yes, probably historically grown out of
compromises ...</rant>).

Yes, we use gcc extensions here (and they are not "bleeding edge") and
there (use "-ansi -pedantic" or "-std=c89 -pedantic" similar to find
them;-). Care to send a patch to make it compile and run with it?) but
the code as is is pretty much C89 (and the gcc extensions which are all
part of C99 or trivially convertible anyways IIRC).

The point is: Even Intel's "icc" was over the years extended (by Intel)
to understand "gcc extensions" at source level (if only to be usable for
the Linux kernel).
So if gcc understands it, chances are IMHO quite good that any somewhat
recent C compiler understands it. For everyone else, I would wait for
concrete error messages.

> > Even less as there is some somewhat recent gcc for virtually everywhere.
> 
> There also is an universal OS running on virtually any hardware. Why
> support these other obscure Systems like Windows and Mac? - SCNR

Because it is less work and maintenance issues to use CygWin than with a
non-free-of-charge MS-VC[[:digit:]]?
Because there are people out there who - at least - compile, test and
report compile bugs?
If they wouldn't be out there, there wouldn't be any support

We (or at least /me) do not break compiling on non-Linux just for fun.
It's just that there is TTBOMK no possibility to compile on other
systems out there unless you install yourself one (sf.net closed their
public compile farm in Feb 2007 or so. Do you have another one?).

So the possibilities are
- do not change anything old - as it might brake something
  So there is virtually no chance the rid of old cruft.
- improve things and fix breakage if people report it.
  Compile errors can be pretty much remotely diagnosed *and* *fixed*
  if send the error + a few lines above complete are sent (since one
  usually saw the breakage before in other files).
If people don't even report breakage, there is no interest anyway.

	Bernd
-- 
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