Re: [no-commit-intention] Naive unnamed fields for main_type [Re: [patch] Fix gdb-gdb.py for flds_bnds copy-pastes]

[Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink dot net>]

On 2/9/12 7:16 AM, Joel Brobecker wrote:
> > I naively tried first to just use unnamed field which makes everything great:
> Hmmm, true! This flds_bnds union has been bugging me (when debugging)
> pretty much ever since it was introduced.
>
> Personally, I don't know what the obstacles are for switching to C99
> (technical, FSF policy?). For this particular issue, I feel that it
> would not exist if struct main_type was a C++ class. So that could be
> another way out of that annoying union. (thinking aloud)
The expected language dialect can be whatever we decide it to be.

There are basically three categories of gotchas:

1) Non-GCC compilers.  Although there's not the bootstrapping problem 
that GCC itself has, we do want people to use GDB even if it might be 
the only piece of GNU software on their systems.  We should at least 
build with the standard native compiler on our supported systems, but 
should feel free to use whatever flags.  Did any of the proprietary 
workstation compilers totally miss the C99 boat?

2) Older versions of GCC.  For C99 this seems unlikely to be an issue 
anymore, who has a still-usable GCC that is over 10 years old?

3) Libraries/headers.  This is probably the most common way that people 
get hosed - their GCC is modern, but library and headers are several 
generations older, and possibly lacking C99-required bits.

Stan