Re: PATCH: Find more ObjC methods

[Ziemowit Laski <zlaski at apple dot com>]

On Sunday, Oct 5, 2003, at 07:52 US/Pacific, Alexander Malmberg wrote:

> We really have two issues here:
>
> 1. Behavior. Should the compiler use prototypes of methods declared 
> only
> in an @implementation outside that @implementation?

If the @implementation is visible (i.e., we are in the same translation
unit), yes.  Why not?
> 2. Warning. Should the compiler warn when a method declared only in an
> @implementation is used outside that @implementation?

If you're in a different translation unit, then obviously you'll still
get a warning since the compiler won't see the method.  If you're in the
same translation unit, then not only do you see the method, but its
runtime availability is statically decidable.  So I'm not sure what it
is you'd want to warn about.
> Currently, we achieve (2) through (1). The patch changes (1), and thus
> we lose (2).
>
>
> (2) is a convention, but a very useful convention, and it's used a lot
> in eg. GNUstep.

And what does this convention buy you?  You wind up warning about 
methods
that are _always_ available!  :-)

>  The compiler should, IMO, warn about this. I don't care
> much about (1), though, and using the prototype does make sense from a
> consistency pov.
>
> Thus, I'm ok with changing (1) to find the prototype, as long as the
> warning remains (optionally, at the very least, and I guess, reworded).

Certainly; 'foo may not respond to bar' is completely bogus in this 
case.  :-)

Perhaps in the future, when we unify the the ..._INTERFACE_TYPE and 
..._IMPLEMENTATION_TYPE
data structures, we can also define a METHOD_HAS_PROTOTYPE() bit in 
..._METHOD_DECL, and you
guys could key off of that to generate the (newly-worded) warning?  
This would have to be
enabled via a flag, since our resident NeXTies would almost certainly 
_not_ want to see this
warning. :-(

--Zem
--------------------------------------------------------------
Ziemowit Laski                 1 Infinite Loop, MS 301-2K
Mac OS X Compiler Group        Cupertino, CA USA  95014-2083
Apple Computer, Inc.           +1.408.974.6229  Fax .5477