bug#25680: maint: tweaks so syntax tests pass for previous commit

[Jim Meyering]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 11:46 AM, Paul Eggert <address@hidden> wrote:
> I see some problems with this followup patch:
>
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/commit/?id=bd4bb42d65aac6591277066739ca42d1ddcc2d0e
>
> in that it will make force-link.c and force-link.h harder to move to gnulib.
> Is there some way that we can have the code pass syntax checks without tying
> it so tightly to coreutils?
>
> Also, why do the syntax checks require those redundant 'extern's? They're
> not that common in practice and I'd rather avoid them.

Hi Paul,
Those "extern" directives are the sole clue that these symbols are
deliberately given external scope. That clue is used by the
sc_tight_scope syntax check rule to ensure that no symbol is
accidentally made external.

If/when it moves to gnulib, those directives should be removed.