Re: A lesson for compiler warning writers

Arnold Robbins <arnold@cc.gatech.edu> writes:


> I have said this before, in different forums, but perhaps not as clearly.
> Rigorous compiler checking is a Good Thing, but it is not enough. No C
> compiler in the world will do cross file checking for you, only lint does
> it. If you have:


This is a touch myopic. While C has a somewhat self-defeating notion of
separate compilation it is quite easy to enforce such consistency if you
have a notion of an interface database (as John suggested). I don't
remember how industrial strength it was, but CLU had exactly such a notion
and the compiler would vigorously complain if interfaces in different
modules did not match. This idea is so simple and old that I can't believe
any other languages haven't implemented it either.


On another note, as more C vendors pick up the C++ baton, I have to
believe that this is going to be a standard feature of compilers +
environments. Make files just don't scale well enough to handle this
problem.
--
xjam@cork.Berkeley.EDU
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