Re: [PATCH 0/5] {maint} restore C90 compliance

[Paul Eggert]

On 12/12/12 05:15, Akim Demaille wrote:
> So... does anybody still care about C90?

Yes, but it's more about features, and not about full conformance.

For coreutils we've been using declarations-after-statements
(one of the C99 features you just yanked from Bison),
and asking people to stick to compilers that support that particular
C99 feature.  A few complain, but these days I get the impression
that most of these complaints are by people who are doing porting
testing (i.e., testing for portability to C89) than doing actual use.

We don't assume all C99 features for coreutils, though, in particular,
not the C99 library.  It's easier to ask people to use GCC than to
ask them to use a library that conforms to C99 or later.

For example, the most recent email I sent to bug-gnulib was about
the OS X C library's failure to support C99 extern inline functions
properly, a fallout from your earlier bug report vis a vis extern
inline.  That is, even for the latest version of OS X, one cannot
assume full C99 support and must revert to C89 in some cases.