Re: patch: <bits/localefwd.h> with -fno-exceptions

[John Schmerge <schmerge at cyber dot com>]

Greetings Everyone...

  After reading this thread, I thought I'd add my $0.02...

  As far as I understand, libstdc++ is a project to support certain sections of
the c++ standard, not a project to support certain sections of the c++ standard
for the gcc compiler. As such, the project will have to support varying levels
of support of the c++ language standard by different compiler vendors.

  The ability to turn off exception handling support in the library is something
that I think should be a feature... Not having it limits libstdc++ to being tied
to gcc which does not seem to be the goal. As an additional argument, the two
major other non-compiler specific c++ standard libraries (Rougewave's and
Dinktum's) _do_ support this feature. I wish that compiler vendors would
implement the standard c++ language, but this is not reality. 

  Although I can appreciate the desire for esthetically pleasing code, I must
disagree w/ his decision to abandon the on/off switch for exception handling in
the library...

  Not having such a facility in place not only limits the library to use with
the gcc compiler, but also compromises the ability for projects to use this
library. Several examples of such projects include:

  * using c++ in embedded/realtime programs
  * using c++ with gui toolkits written in c (such as gtk, motif, xt, etc.)
  * projects that use the standard c libraries qsort function.

  I recently had to spend a serious ammount of time quelching problems I was
having with a c++ program that uses gtk as a gui toolkit b/c the standard
library _does not_ support this functionality. I would have agreed w/ Nathan
Myers to not support old versions of compilers until I had to add try/catch
blocks to 10000 line of code that are used as callbacks to something written in
c.

  I hope this provides some perspective....

Sincerely,
John Schmerge


---------------------------
John Schmerge
schmerge@cyber.com