Re: Mistaken change in GCC (fwd)

["Zack Weinberg" <zackw at stanford dot edu>]

On Tue, Nov 21, 2000 at 05:06:29PM +0100, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
> I am forwarding this comment which RMS sent to the SC.
> 
> Neil, Zack, I think that's most probably your area of expertise?

...
> The purpose of --traditional is to make valid old-style code work.  It
> should not make newer constructs fail, unless that is the only way to
> make valid old-style code work.  However, it is ok for --pedantic
> when used with --traditional to cause warnings for them.

The purpose of -traditional is to make valid old-style code work, yes.
The purpose of -traditional is *not* to add support for old-style
features while simultaneously preserving all newer ones.  Especially
not newer extensions.  The code sample you provide is not only not
acceptable as K+R C, it is not acceptable as conforming ISO C.  It
uses an obscure extension invented by System V Release 4, and this is
the first time I have ever seen it used in real life.  It certainly
never existed in any genuine K+R compiler.  I do not see why you
expect it to work in GCC's emulation of a K+R compiler.

Furthermore, the implementation of -traditional in the preprocessor
(as you know, since I discussed it with you) is with code taken from
GCC 1, which has never had support for this particular extension.  I
doubt I will ever have any interest in adding it.

I suspect that it will be easier to stop using -traditional for
whatever purpose Emacs is using it, than it was to complain about
this.

zw