[BusyBox] Re: ifconfig: Clean up. [PATCH]

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Sun, 2005-07-24 at 21:23 -0500, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Sunday 24 July 2005 21:08, Jason Schoon wrote:
> > I agree about reducing the ifdefs, but I always feel a bit leery about
> > relying on the compiler to remove dead code.  This isn't relevent for
> > Busybox, but in my other code I always use lint, which throws annoying
> > warnings on things like that.

That's actually a reason for using "if(flag)" since the C-code in there
gets parsed everytime - even if the flag is "false".

> Busybox isn't 100% Linux dependent, but we generally assume a roughly 
> equivalent build environment.  The Linux kernel relies _heavily_ on dead code 
> elimination instead of #ifdefs, and any compiler created in the last 20 years 

The kernel targets only gcc as compiler and relys heavily on certain
gcc-defined features.
AFAIK I don't think that busybox wants to be that gcc-centric.

> should be capable of doing dead code elimination.  (Heck, even TCC can do it 
> now.)

gcc-2 had the bug, that constant text strings in dead code (which are
otherwise not used) were not removed.

> And yes, people have come to rely on this, the Linux kernel case in point, but 
> by no means the only one.  Any Lint tool so old and decrepit it doesn't 
> understand that people actually _use_ widely available compiler features 
> isn't necessarily all that useful anymore.  (I could still be convinced 
> either way, but I know where I'm leaning...)

With gcc und it's armada of warnings and checks you basically do not
need any lint anymore. Or is there a pretty usable and decent lint which
checks much more than gcc?
Historically there was lint because the C-compilers were pretty generous
(and erronous BTW).
But whom I'm talking to?;-)

	Bernd
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