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Date:      Sun, 9 Aug 1998 22:00:22 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith)
Cc:        jdp@polstra.com, rivers@dignus.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: C and static initialization with unions
Message-ID:  <199808092200.PAA20417@usr04.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <199808082206.PAA02145@antipodes.cdrom.com> from "Mike Smith" at Aug 8, 98 03:06:45 pm

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> I've had (several) run-ins with const poisoning trying to port a large 
> third-party codebase.  It's sufficiently bogus to require -traditional 
> to build, and I expect not too novel in that regard.

I have a number of programs which I like to use, but which I do not
want to become the maintainer of (for one thing, I don't have a
huge FTP server and can't offer cvsup, etc.).

These programs do things like modify declared strings (on the assumption
that they will be stored in data section, not code section, what with
them being data, and all...).

They also do things like modify variables in signal handlers and in
subfunctions of functions that also use the variable.  Without the
-traditional flag, this would require the use of the "volatile"
keyword.

Other examples exist, including the use of int arguments to
implement varaddic functions, and casting to char * instead
of void * for opaque conversion.

Sure, it's be nice if there were three of me (;-)) and I could
do all this and the stuff that I want to do as well, but there
aren't, and I can't.


> If we support compilation of K&R application code, we should attempt to 
> make sure that system headers function correctly in that regard.

Yes, please.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.

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