Re: Conformant C code, and compiler warnings...

[Frank Mitchell <frank_mitchell_us@...>]

On Wednesday, March 8, 2023 at 09:01:04 PM CST, Mouse <mouse@rodents-montreal.org> wrote: 





>>> As far as warnings go ... it always amazes me when I build an
>>> established Project from source and the compiler issues warnings.

>> Over time, compiler toolchains have steadily improved [...] their
>> ability to issue warnings [...]

> Yes, but some of those warnings are special-purpose or, depending on
> your mindset, outright crazy.

Possibly ... but I'm talking about running the project's own Makefile after the standard ./compile - make - make install cycle, using their chosen compiler.  Yes, maybe I'm running a different version of gcc.  Still, do they not try to install their own product every once in a while? When a new gcc comes out, for example?

Even worse, sometimes the build or install fails because of an undocumented dependency or because the dependencies changed out from under them. A few weeks ago I tried to compile Lua with -lreadline, only to find the new GNU libreadline depended on libhistory and libtermcap. And those shared libraries in /usr/local/lib somehow overrode Linux Mint's versions in /usr/lib ... but that's a whole other saga.

In any case, when I worked at a smallish start-up we regularly tested our Web product against all the major browsers. Even a one-person operation could test against new compiler versions and resolve any warnings that popped up, one way or another. At least they could document the build and deployment environments they've tried. Then again maybe I'm spoiled, coming from the Java world where it's "write once, run anywhere" (unless you're using one of the GUI modules or a non-POSIX operating system or ...).


Frank Mitchell