Re: PATCH: DG/UX Intel port

[Jeffrey A Law <law at upchuck dot cygnus dot com>]

  In message <08ca01bea93f$346b3eb0$65c8c8c8@ehrpc.listworks.com>you write:
  > I put in this change as you suggested.  I now get a few test failures I
  > didn't have before:
  > 
  > FAIL: g++.bugs/900401_01.C  (test for errors, line 12)
  > FAIL: g++.bugs/900402_01.C bitified with function type (test for errors,
  > line 12)
  > 
  > 900401_01.C creates an unsigned 4 byte array as a typedef, then defines a
  > bitfield of that type inside a struct.  The comments in the code say that
  > g++ aborts but Cfront 2.0 passes.  I don't see why g++ should fail.  Which
  > is correct?
It's impossible to tell unless you debug the code.

  > I checked the test reports -- no one reports these tests as failing.  I
  > guess this patch breaks something.  Which is better, backwards compatibility
  > on the DG platform, or cross-platform compatibility at the current release
  > level?  Maybe we should leave the bitfield stuff alone -- possible (unknown)
  > backwards compatibility be damned, full speed ahead! [Any DG people out
  > there to comment on this?]
You will need to debug the tests that are regressing to make this
determination.  It is entirely possible the tests are assuming a particular
bitfield signedness, which would be a bug in the testcases.  This is a fairly
common programming mistake.

Regardless, we can't simply change the signedness of bitfields from one release
to another.  It's simply the wrong thing to do.


jeff