[osol-code] Re: [ksh93-integration-discuss] Trouble with"ERROR:ctfconvert:pics/wordexp.o: Couldn't parse stab "#vla0:(0, 14)" (sourcefile pics/wordexp.o)" ...

[James Carlson]

Roland Mainz writes:
> Yes, but the exercise for Solaris's wordexp.c is to use the C99 VLA's as
> "testbed" to ensure it works (well, it worked for Sun Studio 10 and the
> switch to Studio 11 blew-up the CTF tools... ;-( ) and then get other
> code to use this new feature, too.
> 
> In general |alloca()| should be avoided in portable code and for
> perforamce reasons since some platforms implement |alloca()| via
> |malloc()|, rendering the idea of a quick&easy allocation from stack to
> /dev/null

If anyone has implemented alloca() via malloc(), I'd expect that's a
worthless platform to support anyway.  That'd either be a memory leak
or a hack that dwarfs alloca() by comparison.

In any event, if you feel strongly about it, I think you should
consider fixing the CTF tools to work the way you want.  They're part
of the same code base, and as you're the first one using this feature
in Studio 11, your project is the one requiring this change to CTF.

We collectively own the source base, which means that if you find
something wrong, you ought to go fix it if you can, and not just "work
around" it.  (I'd agree with P3 bug filed, and hackish workaround, but
only for things not in libc, which intentionally has CTF symbols.)

-- 
James Carlson, KISS Network                    <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive         71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
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