Re: Warnings in the C++ Front-End and GCC in General

[Mark Mitchell <mark at markmitchell dot com>]

    Mark> This patch addresses a long-standing need in GCC: the
    Mark> ability to disable individual warnings.

This patch has been backed out.  Therefore, the antecedent in:

    Mark> If I do not hear violent disagreement in the next few days,
    Mark> I will go ahead and implement [a #pragma means of disabling
    Mark> warnings in particular sections of source files].

holds, and I will not be implementing such functionality.

Some have suggested that the functionality was not useful, others that
the life of GCC's developers would be made too odious by having to
maintain consistent error numbers/codes across releases, and by having
error messages appear in a file separate from the source code itself.

I find the second claim (that GCC development would become unudly
difficult) unpersuasive.  From prior experience with similar schemes,
I suspect that the effort involved would be minimal.  Both Microsoft
VC++ and the EDG C/C++ front-end use similar schemes, for whatever
that's worth.

I suspect that those who object on these grounds would budge, if they
are persuaded that the ability to selectively enable/disable warnings
in particular sections of source code is sufficiently important to the
user base.

-- 
Mark Mitchell 			mark@markmitchell.com
Mark Mitchell Consulting	http://www.markmitchell.com