Re: Excplict document and check for C99 compiler (Was: Patch to allow compilation with old compilers (VS 2008))

[Paul Eggert]

On 9/18/18 3:01 PM, Simon Sobisch wrote:
> Was this done after 3.1 release (that's the one I've tested and
> configure passed with using a compiler that*definitely*  doesn't allow
> this)?

No, it was done before the 3.1 release. 'configure' checks for the 
features that you mention, adds compiler flags to enable the features if 
compiler flags are available, and if the flags are not available it says 
so and then tries to compile anyway. Your patch would change 'configure' 
so that it fails instead, which is not an improvement for the cases 
where it is working now.

Let's stop worrying about this. The problem occurs only on obsolescent 
proprietary platforms, and it's not worth our time.