Re: Get rid of underscore.c

[Nick Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>]

Hi Jason,

> > But why should G++ have its own demangler ?  Why not use the binutils one
> > ?  (Possible answer: because the G++ guys want to control the demangler ?)
> 
> Precisely.  The demangler frequently needs to change to reflect changes in
> the compiler.  If the demangler is part of the compiler package, updating
> one involves updating the other.  If it's in binutils, that means I need to
> update binutils to deal with a compiler issue, something I currently only
> do every few months.  My life was made easier when c++filt moved to gcc.
> 
> Why should binutils have its own demangler?

Well one reason is that the demangler works with other compiler's
mangling schemes, not just G++'s, so it makes sense to have it as a
separate-from-gcc utility.

Keeping the demangler in binutils up to date with G++ should not
really be that hard of a problem.  In fact if you can put all of the
demangling code into libiberty then there will be no synchronization
problems at all, as DJ keeps the FSF GCC version of libiberty and the
Sourceware version tightly coupled.

Cheers
        Nick