[wwwdocs, PATCH] C++ terminology: the One Definition Rule in diagnostics

[David Malcolm]

Looking at PR ipa/80000, which notes that ipa-devirt.c has two trailing
spaces in:

if (warning_at (
      DECL_SOURCE_LOCATION(TYPE_NAME (DECL_CONTEXT (vtable->decl))),
      OPT_Wodr,
      "virtual table of type %qD violates "
      "one definition rule  ",
      DECL_CONTEXT (vtable->decl)))

and thus emits:

  foo.cc: virtual table of type 'foo' violates one definition rule  

...I think the wording here is a little confusing to a novice C++
coder: it could be misread that the compiler is complaining that there
are "definition rules", and that one of them has been somehow violated
("why aren't you telling me which one?"), as opposed to the correct
reading, that there is a rule that there must be one definition.

There are 5 such diagnostics, all in ipa-devirt.c.

So I think the wording could be improved by adding a "the", and maybe
capitalizing, to make it:

  foo.cc: virtual table of type 'foo' violates the One Definition Rule

(giving a big hint to the user that the "One Definition Rule" is the thing that they should be typing into their search engine, and that "ODR" is an acronym form of it).

I've even seen it hyphenated in some places, which would make it:

  foo.cc: virtual table of type 'foo' violates the One-Definition Rule

or:

  foo.cc: virtual table of type 'foo' violates the one-definition rule


Here's a patch to the terminology part of our conventions, which suggests adding a "the" and capitalizing (but without the hyphen).


Thoughts?
Dave

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: odr-terminology.patch
Type: text/x-patch
Size: 669 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/attachments/20170314/98d3d31f/attachment.bin>