Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Jeff Hill" <[email protected]> · Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:28:06 -0600

> <pedant lang='en'>                             ^^^^ sight
> </pedant>

Oops, my secret life as an abysmal speller is exposed, but perhaps it was
easier heard first from Andrew, protecting the mother tongue, rather than
from someone else whose first language wasn't English. 

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Johnson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:22 AM
> To: Jeff Hill
> Cc: 'Ralph Lange'; 'EPICS Core Talk'
> Subject: Re: GCC 4 warnings in EPICS Base
> 
> Jeff Hill wrote:
> >>I have reveived a bundle of patches to EPICS Base 3.14 that supposedly
> >>fixes (most of) the GCC 4 warnings.
> >
> > I don't think that we have gcc 4.0 installed here yet. Is it being
> provided
> > with the latest Linux? I just checked and it isn't provided yet by the
> > cygwin installer.
> 
> It's shipped with the latest MacOS releases, and we have 4.0.2 installed
> here on our Solaris systems.
> 
> >>I have reveived a bundle of patches to EPICS Base 3.14 that supposedly
> >>fixes (most of) the GCC 4 warnings.
> 
> I was sent a pile of warning patches a year or so ago which I looked at
> and didn't like some of them - any patches from non-core people need at
> least a review.  Anything that changes an API or public data structure
> should be posted here for wider comment first, and (unlikely here) for
> any new code that's longer than a couple of lines or so I'll need a
> Grant of License signed by the contributor's lab if I don't already have
> one.
> 
> One patch I remember definitely rejecting was a change to the gpHash
> structure that replaced the void* usrPvt pointer with a union of a
> function pointer and a void* pointer.  ANSI doesn't require these to be
> the same size so unfortunately something like this appears to be
> necessary, but the change would have broken any code outside of Base
> that uses gpHash.
> 
> >>Do you want me to ...
> >>- commit them after quick review?
> >>- commit them straight away?
> >>- keep them for my own viewing pleasure?
> >>
> >>Should I
> >>- create a special branch?
> >>- tag this commit somehow specially?
> >>- commit them to the 3.14 branch only?
> >>- commit them to both 3.14 branch and 3.15 trunk?
> >>
> >>I'd like to hear your comments before completely messing things up
> >>(which I'm going to do anyway, be assured).
> 
> I suggest review them yourself and commit anything straightforward to
> both the 3.14 branch and the trunk.  Anything unusual should be posted
> here for discussion.  I second Jeff's concerns.
> 
> > I am happy for you to commit a fix Ralph. It seems that it would be a
> waste
> > to commit your fix to R3.14 w/o doing a merge of the R3.14 updates onto
> the
> > main trunk also.
> >
> > Two concerns:
> > 1) We need to be very careful not to add any new bugs to R3.14
> > 2) There is always the peril that, when suppressing compiler warnings,
> we
> > end up sweeping the dust bunnies under the carpet rather than
> eradicating
> > them, and it might be better to have them in site (flagged by compiler
> <pedant lang='en'>                             ^^^^ sight
> </pedant>
> > warnings) as opposed to having them lurk in dark places (suppressed by
> casts
> > etc).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Andrew
> --
> There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest
> bears and the dumbest tourists -- Yosemite National Park Ranger

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System