Re: PATCH RFA: Support Plan 9 extensions in gcc

[Dave Korn <dave dot korn dot cygwin at googlemail dot com>]

Joseph S. Myers wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Apr 2009, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> 
>> In order to use gcc to compile code written for the Plan 9 compiler, gcc
>> should support these extensions.  Therefore, I propose the following
>> patch.  This has been bootstrapped and tested on i686-pc-linux-gnu.
> 
> What such code is there?  Do you have proposed textual edits to C99 to 
> define such extensions?
> 
> The Santa Clara WG14 minutes include "ACTION: David Keaton to rework his 
> previous proposal on anonymous unions, adding anonymous structures as 
> appropriate.".  Are you or anyone involved with the Plan 9 compiler 
> working with him on proposed changes for WG14 that would include these 
> extensions?  If these extensions are useful and already present in some 
> other implementation, they might be appropriate to propose for C1x.

  The patch looks relatively safe to me.  It is controlled by a flag which is
off by default and it is trivial to see by inspection that the existing code
flow will be unperturbed when the flag is disabled.

  Since it often helps to have a working implementation in the field in order
to drive the standards process and provide feedback as people discover any
problems that may be lurking in the semantics, I think there's a strong
argument for accepting the patch.  Plus it has testcases and documentation,
what more could you ask? ;-)

    cheers,
      DaveK