The following reply was made to PR port-xen/29887; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@netbsd.org>
To: Greywolf <greywolf@starwolf.com>
Cc: Christos Zoulas <christos@zoulas.com>,
	YAMAMOTO Takashi <yamt@mwd.biglobe.ne.jp>, gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org,
	port-xen-maintainer@NetBSD.org, gnats-admin@NetBSD.org,
	netbsd-bugs@NetBSD.org, tech-userlevel@NetBSD.org
Subject: Re: port-xen/29887: sysctl kern.consdev coredumps
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:32:43 -0700

 --QTprm0S8XgL7H0Dt
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
 Content-Disposition: inline
 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 
 On Fri, Jun 17, 2005 at 09:42:00AM -0700, Greywolf wrote:
 > [Thus spake Christos Zoulas ("CZ: ") 9:25am...]
 >=20
 > CZ: I am fine with disabling the optimization, but as I said, it will make
 > CZ: our compiler different. I would rather convince the gcc team to consi=
 der
 > CZ: turning the bogus behavior off permanently.
 
 I like that idea best, however the problem is that the current compiler=20
 will be out there for a while, and so we will still need to do something=20
 to deal with it.
 
 > This egregious behaviour in a compiler is absurd; I think most any other
 > standard of a language would classify such a compiler as "broken, not
 > to be used until fixed, and to be fixed yesterday."
 >=20
 > To have puts/fputs spit out "(null)" would be a much better way to handle
 > this than to dump core.  I don't think we should have to even cpp::#define
 > this based on __gcc_version__ or whatever they call it these days -- when
 > they fix the compiler, we revert the code.
 
 I agree that "(null)" is much better than a core dump. As an application=20
 programmer, it makes my life MUCH easlier. It also has an advantage of=20
 making programs slightly smaller as we have one "(null)" string, not=20
 perhaps a thousand.
 
 Unfortunately, though, we can't just have a cpp define. The problem is we=
 =20
 need to test according to the gcc that compiled the program, not the one=20
 that compiled libc. :-(
 
 Take care,
 
 Bill
 
 --QTprm0S8XgL7H0Dt
 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
 Content-Disposition: inline
 
 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
 Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (NetBSD)
 
 iD8DBQFCswk7Wz+3JHUci9cRAsz0AJ9uu0KsrUMJPw8gZyNviAnIlTH41gCfQLP9
 Es8GWS6NjEFAF2jC+quV2B0=
 =Nc9Z
 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
 
 --QTprm0S8XgL7H0Dt--