Re: [PATCH] merge-file: fix build warning with gcc 4.8.5

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jul 30, 2022, 23:50 UTC
Message-ID: <YuXDqRNQSeyQXWGj@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <YuSNhhRVpg2oT6ry@tapette.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Sat, Jul 30, 2022 at 01:46:46AM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> > Well, config.mak.uname automatically adds -std=c99 for RHEL 7 and
> > CentOS7. Can we add the same things for Debian? Or should we just
> > remove both?
> 
> I don't think we can do that, since Debian kernels don't include a
> distinguishing pattern like that[0].  Also, Debian jessie doesn't have a
> full set of security support, unlike CentOS 7, and thus I would argue we
> probably wouldn't want to support it anyway.

The check really ought to be using the compiler version and not uname anyway. But outside of DEVELOPER=1, we don't (yet) do any probing of the compiler.

> My guess is that Peff used jessie because he uses Debian and it's easier
> for him to set up than CentOS 7, not because we should use it as an
> intentional target.

Yep, exactly.

Show 8 quoted lines

> Personally, although I don't use RHEL and company in either my personal
> or professional life anymore, I think it's probably worth providing a
> modicum of support to because they're very common, at least as long as
> there are freely available clones with security support (e.g., CentOS
> and Rocky Linux) that we can test against.
> 
> All that to say that I think we don't need to change config.mak.uname
> and can rely on folks just setting -std=c99 if need be.

Agreed. I only brought it up as a "gee, is anybody even using this?" head-scratcher. I just wasn't aware of the CentOS workaround.

-Peff