Re: gdb & ISO C (Was `textdomain warning removal')

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313 at cygnus dot com>]

Philippe De Muyter wrote:

> That supposes that gcc builds out of the box on your platform.  In my
> experience, that is seldom the case and I often need a good debugger to find
> why gcc crashes.  And gcc comes with a .gdbinit file that thus supposes gdb
> is available before gcc :)

The decision to move GDB to ISO-C wasn't taken lightly.  It was first
proposed many many years ago.  Following on from that, it was decided
that GDB 4.18 would be released with a function declaration that
required ISO-C (c89) to compile.  Then after waiting six months and
getting zero compilaints, K&R was dropped from the GDB coding standard. 
Once reason the next GDB release is being given the 5.0 designation is
because it, and all its successors, require ISO-C.

As for the decision, it was very much pragmatic.  The rationale
includes:


	o	The reality that the average C
		programmer wouldn't even know what
		K&R C was yet alone the pitfalls of
		trying to get a program to build
		correctly under both K%R and ISO-C.

		For the maintainers we felt we had
		better things to do with our time then
		teach people K&R querks or fix K&R isms.


	o	The presense of programs that
		can translate ISO-C to K&R-C and hence
		allow ISO-C programs to compile using
		legcay compilers.

		Automake (I believe) includes such a
		program.  Consequently, once GDB is
		converted to automake (....) that will
		be provided automatically.


	o	All the major UNIX like OS vendors either
		bundle or put up for FTP a pre-built copy
		of an ISO-C compiler (typically GCC) for
		their OS.

		In general people don't build/boot strap
		GCC, they just download it.


	o	People porting an OS (GNU/Linux, *BSD)
		at a new platform (ex ia64) build a
		cross compiler from an arbitrary stable
		system (which has an ISO-C compiler).

		The good old days of finding a $ARCH
		system and using that systems native
		compiler to bootstrap $OS onto $ARCH
		are, fortunatly, long gone. (Ya!!!)


	o	For seriously old or rare systems, the
		equally old GDB/GCC releases were still
		available for download.


I should point out that, in my opinion, the above rationale applies
equally to binutils and GCC.  GDB is simply serving as the fall-guy.

Finally, I will note that there are no current plans to move GDB to
either c9x or C++.

	enjoy,
		Andrew