Re: c/3190: Re: gcc bug: complaint on %c for strftime

["Joseph S. Myers" <jsm28 at cam dot ac dot uk>]

The following reply was made to PR c/3190; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Joseph S. Myers" <jsm28@cam.ac.uk>
To: Neil Booth <neil@daikokuya.co.uk>
Cc: Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>,  <Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl>, 
     <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>,  <gcc-gnats@gcc.gnu.org>
Subject: Re: c/3190: Re: gcc bug: complaint on %c for strftime
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 20:56:08 +0000 (GMT)

 On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Neil Booth wrote:
 
 > Might I suggest that these comments won't be forthcoming, seeing as
 > we've waited this long, and we blow this warning away?  Otherwise we just
 > deadlock, which is also the case on similar issues, which is not good when
 > a better solution than the existing one is available.
 
 (a) If the issue comes up and annoys people they're more likely to
 comment.  Perhaps in a few decades' time if nothing is done before then
 people will study this as the then oldest open bug.  Except where
 regressions from >= 2.95 bugs don't come with a timescale; they're merely
 something that may be worth fixing eventually, whether within a day, a
 year or many years.
 
 (b) I'll predict now that if GCC and C-based languages with strftime are
 still in use in the 2090s, people then will be cursing anyone who now
 removes Y2K (and Y2.1K) warnings for -Wall, assisting in proliferation of
 bad code, unless by then there have been major improvements through other
 methods in the ability to write correct code.  I consider it unfortunate
 that WG14 failed to take the opportunity of DR#217 to fix the Y10K problem
 in the C standard.
 
 (c) A simple conservative change would be to move -Wformat-y2k out of
 -Wformat (into -Wformat=2 alongside -Wformat-nonliteral and
 -Wformat-security; -Wformat-security being another option I think would
 fit the definition of -Wall).  But see (b) about people in 90 years' time
 cursing such a change.
 
 -- 
 Joseph S. Myers
 jsm28@cam.ac.uk