Re: struct stat

["David A. Greene" <greened@eecs.umich.edu>]

Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> 
> "David A. Greene" <greened@eecs.umich.edu> writes:
> 
> > Umm...Wait a second.  dev_t is supposed to be an integral type.  It
> > isn't if you're not using gcc.  This is broken.
> 
> It means that glibc is GCC specific.  I really don't think this is a
> problem.  I'm sorry if you want to compile it with some other
> compiler, but it's not our priority to support other compilers.

I understand if it's not a priority.  But shouldn't there be some
consideration?  I'd really hate to fork glibc just to get this 
to work.  It seems rather silly.

> Perhaps if you are doing compiler-related research, you can add this
> to the list of things that you are learning: that there are important
> reasons to support more than just minimal C in a compiler.

That's all well and good.  But even if I add long long support, it 
won't  work because uquad_t is guarded by __GNUC__.  At the minimum, 
glibc should give other compilers a CHANCE.  It really should 
define st_dev sanely for non-long long compilers, but that's 
looking more and more like a pipe dream, unfortunately.

And thank you for being so patronizing.

> glibc contains many other GNU toolchain specific things.  It requires
> the availability of weak bindings, something not part of the
> standard.  The Hurd code makes extensive use of nested functions, also
> most certainly not part of the standard.  We frequently use other
> minor GCC extensions, like zero-length and automatic arrays, inline
> functions, and so forth.

I haven't run into those yet.  Where are they used?  As long as the 
header files are clean, there shouldn't be any problems.  We're not 
going to compile glibc with our compiler (we'd like to, but I can 
understand the glibc developers' position here).

We are using the GNU toolchain for everything else (i.e. gas, ld, etc.),
so those things are not a problem.

> Incidentally, will the fruits of your work be free software?

Yes.  Does that make a difference?

                                                 -Dave