Re: CVS commit: pkgsrc/cross/mingw-binutils

[David Holland <dholland-pkgchanges%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 01:30:20AM +0200, John Marino wrote:
 > >>A) I don't think it's a hack to turn this off
 > >>B) There may not be a choice barring the patching off source.
 > >>If -Werror is applied after CFLAGS, it's impossible to disable
 > >>from the makefile.
 > >
 > >Instead of letting package fail when it might be in danger of losing its
 > >functionality, you let it build with potential errors. Thus it is a hack.
 > 
 > Here's my issue with that stance:
 > Let's say the source is 7 years old.  The same potential problem
 > was there the entire time, but no compiler detected it as a
 > warning.  Now one does.  If it's really a problem, the problem was
 > always there and nobody noticed.   And masking -Werror doesn't
 > delete the new warning, it still shows up in the log.  So you've
 > only gained, not lost, by masking it.

In practice you don't see or bother to look at the build logs unless
the build fails.

Anyhow, this happens all the time, with real problems. I've probably
patched a couple hundred of these if not more by now. Most common is
software that isn't 64-bit clean for stupid reasons, such as using
(char *)malloc(size) instead of including <stdlib.h>.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost