Messages in this thread | | | From | dewar@gnat ... | Subject | Re: [PATCH] C undefined behavior fix | Date | Sat, 5 Jan 2002 23:26:17 -0500 (EST) |
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<<There are some C compilers that are useful for implementing a kernel, that's true. But when the maintainers of such a compiler say things that imply that they feel they are constrained only by the standard and not by the needs of their users, it is very discouraging. >>
What is important is for these users to *clearly* and at least semi-formally, state their needs. Saying general things about the need to be useful is hardly helpful!
You quote Florian:
> You cannot manipulate machine addresses in C because C is > defined as a high-level language, without backdoors to such low-level > concepts as machine addresses.
Unfortunately Florian is right. The ability in C to manipulate low-level concepts such as machine addresses is NOT part of the language, but rather comes from exploiting aspects that are deliberately left implementation dependent. This is why it is so important to formally state the requirements that are being depended on.
I don't think anyone seriously objects to trying to formulate solutions to what is indeed a very important problem.
But it is hardly helpful for people to take the attitude "we wrote this kernel, and it worked, and any change to the compiler that stops it from working is unacceptable". - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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