Re: AIX with Visual Age C compiler fails to compile 2.1 and later

[Akim Demaille]

>>> "Paul" == Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:

 > Akim Demaille <address@hidden> writes:
 >> I don't believe we ought to fight against bugs in C++ compilers.
 >> The code we produce is compliant with a (pretty-)well defined standard.

 > Yes, we needn't port to ancient C++ circa 1985,

That's not C++, that's an ancient dialect.  (ISO) C++ is born in 95.

 > but on the other hand we need to be cognizant of the wide variety
 > of C++ compilers in practical use today, not all of which strictly
 > conform to the latest standard.

10 years old!?!  Then I'd like to know how old was that compiler.

 > Suppose, for example, the Bison-generated parser triggered a bug in
 > the C++ compiler in GCC 3.4 and earlier.  If that happened, I'd say we
 > should alter Bison (assuming it's relatively easy) rather than insist
 > that everybody upgrade to GCC 4.0 before they or their code-suppliers
 > can use Bison.  Older GCC compilers are still quite widely used; GCC
 > 2.95.4 and GCC 3.3.5 are the two standard GCC installations on Debian
 > stable, for example.

I definitely agree!  But I cannot imagine that, given the state of the
regression tests as of today, given the extreme aggressiveness that
some C++ tests can have wrt the compiler, that some day, code as
simple as this one, can make a compiler fail.