On Friday 14 June 2013 17:34:26 Rainer Jung wrote:
> On 14.06.2013 16:41, André Malo wrote:
> > On Wednesday 12 June 2013 21:18:05 Stefan Fritsch wrote:
> >> On Tuesday 11 June 2013, André Malo wrote:
> >>>>        trunk patch: http://svn.apache.org/r1491155
> >>>>        2.4.x patch: trunk patch works
> >>>>        nd: why would you do that in a stable branch?
> >>>>
> >>>> +      sf: Because it is only annoying and serves no purpose
> >>>> anymore. If you +          want, we can make it a minor MMN bump
> >>>> for adding a "new" API. +1: sf, covener
> >>>>
> >>>>        -1: nd
> >>>
> >>> Long discussions in STATUS are kinda tedious ;-)
> >>>
> >>> Well, I think, such changes are what trunk is for. Why not simply
> >>> leave  everything below as-is? Even more if it removes only an
> >>> annoyance? Or is there a real technical reason I'm just not seeing
> >>> right now?
> >
> > [...]
> >
> >> Or, is there a real technical reason to keep it broken in 2.4?
> >
> > Annoying rhetoric games aside - we went from "only annoying" to "broken".
> > What is it now?
> >
> > No other opinion on this?
>
> As far as I understand the matter, the block removed by the above commit
> would throw a compiler error if code uses strtoul() and includes httpd.h.
>
> The motivation was that at the time the block was introduced some
> supported platforms, e.g. SunOS 4, did not have strtoul(), so it was
> helpful to throw that error even when compiled on other platforms to
> ensure compatibility.
>
> The error will also be thrown for any 3rd-party code that uses strtoul()
> and includes httpd.h when being compiled - so practically all modules
> are prohibited to use strtoul().
>
> The function is part of C89 which we assume as a minimum when compiling
> Apache 2.4. So I do not see any positive effects of the old block. I do
> recognize, that it breaks module compilation for modules using
> strtoul(). So the proposed change removes an obstacle for full CC89
> support in modules. Furthermore I can not imagine any risk of breaking
> stuff that worked before removing the block.
>
> Based on that I am +1 to remove the block.

I agree, that the block should simply die. However, I question the value of 
doing cosmetical changes in our stable branches (which is the justification 
in STATUS).

So the question in this specific case is: is it a cosmetical change or not?

nd

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