Re: [groff] Loss of MSVC support

[Eric S. Raymond]

Keith Marshall <address@hidden>:
> > There has been no work on that support since 2005, 12 years ago.
> 
> So, it has been stable for 12 years (actually 14 years); that does *not*
> mean that it is no longer relevant, yet you want to turn around and
> destroy it?

No. By report, Microsoft's APIs change often enough that I assume any code
not refreshed in 12 years will be *broken.*

> > Since then, MINGW and the DeLorie compiler have offered generally
> > satisfactory support for programs in groff's class. Indeed, Microsoft
> > itself has much improved its support for the POSIX API and now has a
> > stdlib.h header.
> 
> Huh?  What has that to do with *anything*?  MSVC has had a stdlib.h
> header *forever* ... i.e. since MSVC version 1.0 originally appeared.
> It has, and never has had, anything to do with POSIX/C99 compatibility;

I think the Open Group would disagree with you on this.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/stdlib.h.html

> Windows is *not* a POSIX compatible platform, and while C99 support may
> have improved somewhat, in the very newest versions of MSVC, that
> support remains sketchy, and it most certainly *does not* propagate back
> into the MSVCRT.DLL implementations, on which free compilers such as
> MinGW are obliged to depend, (even on the newest Windows versions).
> 
> I suspect that much of the code you are targetting as MSVC specific is
> actually the code I wrote, around 14 years ago, to support *MinGW* (and
> not specific to MSVC at all).  I can't speak for the requirements of the
> DJGPP compiler, but rip that out, and you kill MinGW support.

You seem to be saying that we *cannot* require C99/POSIX conformance from
toolchains on target systems without critical breakage.

If so, this conversation is pretty much over because the best I could do would
be tinkering at the edges, so minor as to not really be worth the effort.

How does the build recipe work under Winows? Does it run shell and m4?
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>

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