Re: gcc 4.2 more strict check for "function called through a non-compatible type"

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

Ian Lance Taylor writes:
 > Andrew Haley <aph@redhat.com> writes:
 > 
 > > If we make a change for openssh to allow this undefined behaviour,
 > > then do we agree to keep it working or not?  If we agree that we will,
 > > then we have to at least add some test cases and we have to add some
 > > internal documentation to gcc.  If we don't agree to keep it working,
 > > then even if we fix it today it may well break in the future.
 > 
 > As I tried to clarify in a separate message, I don't think we agree to
 > keep it working.

After reading your last message in this thread I believe we now
disgree very little.  If it's painless to us to remove this abort, and
doing so doesn't cause an ICE, so be it.

 > > I don't think we're doing the developers of openssh any favours by
 > > compiling such code.  Quite the reverse, IMO.
 > 
 > This is, I suppose, the root of our disagreement.  I believe that
 > the people we hurt are not the developers, who presumably have
 > enough sense to fix their code after they see the warning (if they
 > don't, I don't care about them).  The people we are hurting are the
 > users, who discover that their existing third party code does not
 > compile with the new compiler.  Again, if we gained anything by not
 > compiling their code, then I would be all for it.  But in this case
 > we do not gain anything.  We're actually going to extra effort to
 > break their code.

I didn't realize that we were doing so; from reading the lists I was
under the impression that we were generating an abort in order to
avoid doing extra work.  If this isn't the case, and we can simply
remove that abort, let's do so.

 > To me this is related to the point I raised at the steering
 > committee panel discussion (I know you weren't there): I think we
 > are too casual about breaking existing working code.

Perhaps.

Andrew.