Re: Compiling lposix.c (patch)

[David Jones <drj@...>]

On 5 Oct 2006, at 00:29, Sam Roberts wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 05:51:36PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 02:31:49PM -0700, Sam Roberts wrote:
> > > Try without -pedantic. The only purpose of -pedantic is to make some
> > > code NOT compile, and you want lposix.c to compile.
> >
> > The gcc documentation claims -pedantic only adds warnings, not  
> > errors.
> > I guess the glibc folks are detecting the switch, and using it for
> > things it wasn't meant for?
>
> I have no idea if/when it became useful :-), it wasn't originally  
> meant
> to be:
>
>   This option is not intended to be useful; it exists only to satisfy
>   pedants who would otherwise claim that GCC fails to support the ANSI
>   standard.
>
>   - http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-2.95.3/gcc_2.html#SEC8

I like to summarise -ansi and -pedantic in the following way:

-ansi _enables_ the compilation of "all" ISO C compliant code (that  
is, it moves GCC extensions out of the namespace reserved for use by  
the programmer).

-pedantic stops you from accidentally using GCC extensions and  
therefore gives you a shot at being able to use a different compiler  
later.

The GCC maintainers live in a world where there is no feasible reason  
to ever use another C compiler, so in their opinion, if GCC can  
compiler some code then why should you care if some other compiler  
can't?

drj