Re: Probable bugs in egcs-19981220 and autoconf 2.12

[Roberto Bagnara <bagnara at di dot unipi dot it>]

N8TM@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 12/22/98 3:57:22 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> bagnara@di.unipi.it writes:
> 
> << I discovered the following while using autoconf 2.12
>  together with egcs-19981220/g++. Autoconf uses the following
>  program to check whether the C++ compiler works:
> 
>  #line 894 "configure"
>  #include "confdefs.h"
>  main(){return(0);}
> 
>  If the -Wall option is used, then egcs-19981220 rejects it >>
> This could be useful information.  egcs expects a newer version of autoconf,
> but I have had to fall back on autoconf 2.12 for systems where the newer
> version refuses to install.  Maybe this change and the change of the version
> report are all that are required.  However, this test string appears on first
> glance to appear in acspecific.m4.

Perhaps my message was not clear enough, sorry about that.
The bugs do not show up building egcs (the problem I reported previously
with the egcs configuration mechanism expecting a non-released version of
autoconf seems to have been fixed). I have discovered them building
an application of mine.

As far as egcs-19981220 is concerned: -Wall should not cause the rejection
of a C++ program just because it omits the return type of `main'.
IMHO, either the program is rejected regardless of -Wall, or the
program is compiled.

As far as autoconf 2.12 is concerned: testing whether the C++ compiler
works should be done with a program not omitting the return type of `main'.

The combination of these two bugs makes autoconfiguration of C++ programs
impossible if the user has specified CFLAGS so as to contain -Wall.
I am one of those users ;)

Cheers,

         Roberto

-- 
Roberto Bagnara
Department of Mathematics, University of Parma, Italy
http://www.di.unipi.it/~bagnara/bagnara.html
mailto:bagnara@di.unipi.it