On 7/3/2014 2:25 PM, Salz, Rich wrote:
Would the project consider moving to C99Yes, we are. We're trying to figure out platform and toolchain issues. (Platform is the operating system and hardware, and toolchain is like gcc or clang, for those who don't know.) I think moving to c99 is an obvious thing to do :) /r$
Please be aware that several target platforms do not have working C99 compilers, and some probably never will. Microsoft platforms probably have the least up to date compilers amongst major platforms, while minor platforms may be stuck with whatever gcc or CPU vendor compiler was current at its time of inception. It will probably be at least another 5 to 10 years before widely used libraries such as OpenSSL can switch to C99 without loosing users by the wayside. This is because many compiler vendors (including gcc) are only now (in 201x) approaching working C99 support in their bleeding edge compilers, and there is a typical 5 to 10 year delay between that happening and the majority of platforms using an equivalent compiler as their system compiler. The previous posters claims about initializing all variables is equally possible in C90. However his dead-code elimination assumption will probably only be true for major CPU/platform target combinations, because minor platforms often suffer from missing or buggy optimizers as a rule of thumb. Thus once again, portability implies that overreliance on compilers being state of the art is not portable. Also note that the need to link actual application code to OpenSSL (or any other portable library) significantly limits the choice of compiler to those that produce compatible .o files to those produced and used by the application linker. Enjoy Jakob -- Jakob Bohm, CIO, Partner, WiseMo A/S. http://www.wisemo.com Transformervej 29, 2730 Herlev, Denmark. Direct +45 31 13 16 10 This public discussion message is non-binding and may contain errors. WiseMo - Remote Service Management for PCs, Phones and Embedded ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
