Re: /* compiler workaround */ - what was the issue?

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 5, 2016, 21:41 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqtwic9o88.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <17E04501C9474282B87758C7998A1F5B@PhilipOakley>

"Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

>     int saved_namelen = saved_namelen; /* compiler workaround */
>
> Which then becomes an MSVC compile warning C4700: uninitialized local 
> variable.
>
> I'm wondering what was the compiler workaround being referred to? i.e. why 
> does it need that tweak? There's no mention of the reason in the commit 
> message.

That was a fairly well-known workaround for GCC that issues a false warning that variable is used before initialized. I thought we stopped using it several years ago in new code after doing a bulk sanitizing (I think the new recommended workaround was to initialise such a variable to the nil value like '0' for integers).