On Fri, 10 Mar 2023 03:22:12 +0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
On 3/10/23 02:51, Matt Jolly wrote:
I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to raise an issue that has
been causing inconvenience for me (and potentially others). The recent
removal of C89 information from man pages (72b349dd8c209d7375d4d4f76e2315943d654ee9)
has put me in a difficult situation. >> As I continue to work on code that adheres to the C89 style, such as cURL,
I am unable to quickly determine if a particular function can be used or if
it was introduced in a later standard like C 99. >> This slows down my workflow and hampers my productivity.
Therefore, I kindly request that we revert the changes made in the "Many
pages: Remove references to C89" patch. >> Furthermore, I urge everyone to recognize the importance of this
information and ensure it is not removed from man pages in the future.
The main problem was that the existing info about C89 was not consistent.
Some pages declared APIs being standard since C89, while others didn't.
Incorrect info isn't much better than no info.
I'm curious about cURL's real need for C89. I see that cURL uses GNU
extensions (-std=gnu89), which actually pulls most of C99[1] (I think
it pulls the entire C library, and most of the core language).
Virtually all (even MS, which has always been the last in this)
systems support C99; why would you consciously avoid it? Is there
any system that doesn't yet support it? Which are the C libraries
that you need to support that don't provide C99 functions by default
(or at all)?
I'd like to really understand the need for C89 in 2023.
A quick browse down:
https://curl.se/download.html
shows a number of legacy platforms and versions available:
SCO UnixWare 7.10.3
Linux MIPSel 7.10.7
RISC OS 7.11.0
Linux Slackware S390 7.12.2
BeOS 7.12.3
AmigaOS m68k 7.14.0
SGI IRIX 6.5 7.15.1
Digital Tru64 UNIX 4.0D 7.15.1
SCO Open Server 5 7.15.1
Linux Maemo 3.2 7.15.5
Linux Slackware PPC 7.16.2 Slackintosh
Linux OpenWRT 8.09.1 MIPSel 7.17.1
Linux Unslung 7.17.1
MiNT 7.20.1
QNX 6.5 7.21.7
Linux Ångström PPC 7.24.0
Plan9 7.28.1 9front
Linux Tizen 2.3 ARM 7.28.1
OS/2 7.36.0
which may need e.g. third party patches to remain secure.
Not to mention the legacy systems on those platforms.
Perhaps the US FAA or certain US regional airlines still use these? ;^>
Even DOS DJGPP supports GCC 9.3 with -std=c2x!
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
