Re: fts: make find *much* faster on dirent.d_type-challenged FS

[Jim Meyering]

Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:

> Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:
>>>> I vaguely recall feeling a slight twinge as I did that,
>>>> but since coreutils proper has been using decl-after-stmt,
>>>> for so long, I let it slide.
>>>
>>> How does that work?  Do most compilers out there really support
>>> decl-after-stmt (not likely?!), or do you offer a patch for users with
>>> older compilers?
>>
>> I used to maintain a patch, src/c99-to-c89.diff, that would perform the
>> conversion, but stopped 4 or 5 months ago.  It was not worth the trouble.
>>
>> So far, no one has complained.
>
> Interesting!
>
> I'll sneak in one decl-after-stmt in some of my projects and see if
> anyone complains too.  Using decl-after-stmt can improve code
> readability so if it is possible to use, I'd like to make more use of
> it.

If only a few people complain, give *them* the task of maintaining the
ever-growing c99-to-c89 patches.  Eventually they will either see that
it is easier to upgrade their compiler(s), or the obsolete system will
stop being relevant.

Thinking I shouldn't have succumbed on fts.c, my consolation is that
while doing that, I did manage to make a few minor unrelated improvements.