Re: Fw: Hide non-standard itoa/utoa() in stdlib.h or drop these functions?

[C Howland <cc1964t@gmail.com>]

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>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Corinna Vinschen <vinschen@redhat.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 23, 2024 4:03 AM
> *To:* Christian Franke <Christian.Franke@t-online.de>
> *Cc:* newlib@sourceware.org <newlib@sourceware.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Hide non-standard itoa/utoa() in stdlib.h or drop these
> functions?
>
>
> On Jan 22 19:46, Christian Franke wrote:
> > The functions itoa() and utoa() are non-standard, not exported by Cygwin
> and
> > also unavailable on FreeBSD and Linux (glibc and musl libc). Busybox for
> > example could not be build OOTB using newlib's stdlib.h because there are
> > conflicts with local functions with same names but different signatures.
> >
> > See the original posts on the Cygwin list for more details:
> > https://sourceware.org/pipermail/cygwin/2024-January/255216.html
> > https://sourceware.org/pipermail/cygwin/2024-January/255217.html
> >
> > Corinna proposed to either drop these functions entirely or hide the
> > prototypes on Cygwin only. I attached a patch for the second alternative.
> >
> > --
> > Regards,
> > Christian
> >
>
> > From 5f1c43796c6a125f04c1f2436fc1048783ce3b7a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > From: Christian Franke <christian.franke@t-online.de>
> > Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:11:20 +0100
> > Subject: [PATCH] Hide itoa, utoa, __itoa and __utoa in stdlib.h on
> Cygwin only
> >
> > These functions are non-standard and not exported by Cygwin.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Christian Franke <christian.franke@t-online.de>
> > ---
> >  newlib/libc/include/stdlib.h | 4 +++-
> >  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/newlib/libc/include/stdlib.h b/newlib/libc/include/stdlib.h
> > index 15b349440..fd89f5ba7 100644
> > --- a/newlib/libc/include/stdlib.h
> > +++ b/newlib/libc/include/stdlib.h
> > @@ -221,11 +221,13 @@ char *  ecvtbuf (double, int, int*, int*, char *);
> >  char *       fcvtbuf (double, int, int*, int*, char *);
> >  char *       ecvtf (float,int,int *,int *);
> >  #endif
> > +#ifndef __CYGWIN__
> >  char *       __itoa (int, char *, int);
> >  char *       __utoa (unsigned, char *, int);
> > -#if __MISC_VISIBLE
> > +# if __MISC_VISIBLE
> >  char *       itoa (int, char *, int);
> >  char *       utoa (unsigned, char *, int);
> > +# endif
> >  #endif
> >  #if __POSIX_VISIBLE
> >  int  rand_r (unsigned *__seed);
> > --
> > 2.43.0
> >
>
> In fact, while this patch fixes the namespace pollution for Cygwin, I
> wonder if we shouldn't remove itoa/utoa entirely.  The underscored
> functions __itoa/__utoa accomplish exactly the same thing.
>
> Does anybody actually *need* itoa/utoa as long as we have __itoa/__utoa?
>
>
> Corinna
>
>      itoa() and utoa() should definitely be deleted.
     Removing them from the header file is only a half-baked solution for
regular Newlib because they are still in the library.  With them still in
the library you can end up linking to the wrong version and that's worse
than the "wrong" prototype being found that clearly blows up compilation.
Given the __ versions still being available it allows a simple fix for
anyone that does happen to use them.  (Perhaps to be most friendly to that
we should somehow make sure that a point in the next release notes mentions
this.  (Won't be bad to find with the __ versions still in stdlib.h,
though.))
     (In hindsight we probably fell down on the job allowing them to be
added as they were.  Just the __ versions should have gone in to begin
with.)
                                              Craig