C99 structure initialisers and Samba3

[Gerald (Jerry) Carter]

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tridge at samba.org wrote:

> but yes, I am suggesting we drop support for compilers 
> that don't have C99 initialisers. I know its a pain to
> lose them, and I'd certainly like to keep supporting them
> if we could, but I think the gains from robust initialisers
> are worth the loss.

I've sent a query out to a large sysadmin list I'm on
and so far the response is "I'd be annoyed but as long
as your let me know, I can probably deal with it."  This
basically means adding configure tests for what we need
and failing early and with a clear explanation of why.

Or as one person rephrased by question:

	What I believe Gerald is asking is "We've been
	coding with one arm tied behind our backs in
	order to support old compilers...but does anyone
	care? Can we write simple, efficient, modern C
	code which will compile on 98% if the compilers
	we know about, or is the clamor from the other
	2% going to keep holding us back?"

We could add fairly benign checks to configure.in (just tests,
not requirements) in the next 3.0.23 release and see what
response we get.




cheers, jerry
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