Subject: Re: C Language Standard(s)
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Simon J. Gerraty <sjg@zen.void.oz.au>
List: current-users
Date: 01/08/1996 21:02:46
> Wietse Venema's "unproto" has been doing exactly that for several years.
> Get it from ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/unix/unproto5.shar.Z.  It has
> worked fine for me with an oldish HP compiler under HP-UX 7.0.

I've had to bulk process whole projects with indent cproto etc in the
past too.  Any way you slice it, its a lot of work that is best
avoided.

If you do run unproto and things break - what do you do?  You probably
end up having to fix each bug twice.

> I don't quite understand why we need pre-ANSI C for bootstrapping

The current kernel code is _not_ pre ANSI.  It simply uses old-style
function definitions - quite legit.

> the source tree, I would prefer to see a scheme using something like
> "unproto", rather than the present system of using __P() macros and
> stuff.

What does anyone think it is costing - using the old style
definitions?  Why change something that is not broken?

The only code where new vs old style definitions makes a difference is
code which uses stdargs and functions that want to pass sub-int types.
stdargs based code certainly does not constitute the bulk of any code
base so does not form a strong imperative to switch and  functions that
pass sub-int types are often ill conceived .... :-)

--sjg