newsletter #10

[Kaveh R. Ghazi]

 > More compiler warnings are always good. It looks like the OpenBSD
 > folks added the sentinel (a [.] checker that can verify that
 > varargs functions such as execl(cmd, arg1, arg2, NULL) are indeed
 > null-terminated (when the arguments are constant)) attribute to
 > their 2.95 gcc.  Marc Espie posted the patch[9] implementing this
 > for 2.95 gccs. Hopefully, this will get in someday.

This is done.

I implemented something slightly more encompassing for mainline based
on feedback from a long discussion here:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2004-08/msg01068.html
(The sentinel-value argument from my proposal was not included.)

My patch went in just before the stage3 deadline so the next release
of GCC will have it:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2004-09/msg00505.html

The difference from Marc Espie's original implementation for 2.95 is
that mine also can check functions like `execle' where the sentinel is
not the last variadic argument.

		--Kaveh
--
Kaveh R. Ghazi			ghazi@caip.rutgers.edu