From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeffrey A Law To: ddsinc09 AT ix.netcom.com Cc: rittle AT rsch.comm.mot.com, gcc AT gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 4.0 Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 17:10:00 -0000 Message-id: <14810.937440488@upchuck.cygnus.com> References: <37E00F41.AF49518@datadesign.com> X-SW-Source: 1999-09/msg00665.html In message < 37E00F41.AF49518@datadesign.com >you write: > First off, I am strongly in the camp that says the fewer headers > that get secreted off some place the better. In other words, > if the standard BSD compiler is GCC, then the standard BSD headers > should be compatible with it. But, unfortunately, header requirements change over time. This is precisely the problem we have had with the *BSD* systems over the years. Back in 1991 or so I put in a change which made GCC avoid installing its own internal header files for "Net-2" systems (upon which all the *BSD variants are derived. That turned out to be a huge, unbelievably stupid, thing to do. Why? Because when we needed to provide a magic symbol (I believe in stddef.h) to ensure that C++ adhered to the proper definition of NULL the *BSD systems did not get that definition. Or another example would be the need to massage math.h because it had "struct exception" in it and "exception" became a reserved word for C++. > >From the perspective that the future will be compatible, That is not an assumption we can safely make because the requirements do change over time and GCC needs to continue to work when those requirements change. > The most straght forward answer is: do that which has the smallest > impact while still being certain to not break other implementations. I certainly agree with this. However, it has to include installation of the GCC header files, now and in the future. jeff From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeffrey A Law To: ddsinc09@ix.netcom.com Cc: rittle@rsch.comm.mot.com, gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 4.0 Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 18:02:00 -0000 Message-ID: <14810.937440488@upchuck.cygnus.com> References: <37E00F41.AF49518@datadesign.com> X-SW-Source: 1999-09n/msg00665.html Message-ID: <19990930180200.v5b2LVrRiayCjtMpurdFRDEdJfTzz7ThAonkpTNRiB0@z> In message < 37E00F41.AF49518@datadesign.com >you write: > First off, I am strongly in the camp that says the fewer headers > that get secreted off some place the better. In other words, > if the standard BSD compiler is GCC, then the standard BSD headers > should be compatible with it. But, unfortunately, header requirements change over time. This is precisely the problem we have had with the *BSD* systems over the years. Back in 1991 or so I put in a change which made GCC avoid installing its own internal header files for "Net-2" systems (upon which all the *BSD variants are derived. That turned out to be a huge, unbelievably stupid, thing to do. Why? Because when we needed to provide a magic symbol (I believe in stddef.h) to ensure that C++ adhered to the proper definition of NULL the *BSD systems did not get that definition. Or another example would be the need to massage math.h because it had "struct exception" in it and "exception" became a reserved word for C++. > >From the perspective that the future will be compatible, That is not an assumption we can safely make because the requirements do change over time and GCC needs to continue to work when those requirements change. > The most straght forward answer is: do that which has the smallest > impact while still being certain to not break other implementations. I certainly agree with this. However, it has to include installation of the GCC header files, now and in the future. jeff