From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Jan 5 12:13:27 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from monkeys.com (i180.value.net [206.14.136.180]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB4FD14D9D for ; Wed, 5 Jan 2000 12:13:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rfg@monkeys.com) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by monkeys.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA01643; Wed, 5 Jan 2000 12:13:03 -0800 (PST) To: Thomas David Rivers Cc: cracauer@cons.org, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] alt. C compiler In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 05 Jan 2000 14:54:35 -0500. <200001051954.OAA32472@lakes.dignus.com> Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2000 12:13:03 -0800 Message-ID: <1641.947103183@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <200001051954.OAA32472@lakes.dignus.com>, Thomas David Rivers wrote: rfg> Here is a list of a few system include file problems, in no particular rfg> order. Most of these are ANSI conformance problems. rfg> ... {bugz elided} ... > This begs a question.... and to help in my understanding... > > Certainly, these header files aren't ANSI conforming. That is correct. > But - that's not to say we don't have an ANSI conforming C implementation, That is also correct. > as these aren't ANSI header files - right? Right. Those are not header files that are mandated by the ANSI C standard and thus, the ANSI C standard also does not mandate that they be conformant with the standard before you can claim that you have a conforming ANSI C implementation. > That is; isn't it true that in our "own" header files - we can do whatever > we want? You're talking about the difference between the strict letter of the law, and pragmatic usefulness. Yes, according to the strict letter of the law, all of these other system include files don't even have to exist, and if they do exist, they could contain any garbage you want, including random binary bytes that drive the compiler absolutely mad. The ANSI C standard has _nothing_ to say about any system include files _except_ the very limited set that the ANSI C standard actually mandates and talks about. But pragmatically, it sure would be nice if I (or you) as a programmer developing stuff on FreeBSD could include various of the FreeBSD include files into any program that we happen to be working on, and then fire up the compiler (with our own personal favorite set of command line options) and then _not_ be plagued by a whole bunch of spurious warnings and/or errors that have noting actually to do with _our_ code. This isn't about standards conformance. It is about providing a top quality _complete_ software developement system/environment. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message