Re: Usage of "inline" in gettext.h

[Bruno Haible]

Lasse Collin wrote:
> I'm using gettext 0.16.1. There is a comment in gettext.h about usage of 
> const: ...
> 
> So it suggest using AC_C_CONST in configure.ac.

AC_C_CONST is obsolete for several years already. The autoconf doc says:

     This macro is obsolescent, as current C compilers support `const'.
     New programs need not use this macro.

> #ifdef __GNUC__
> __inline
> #else
> #ifdef __cplusplus
> inline
> #endif
> #endif
> static const char *
> 
> Is this a left-over from the past, or why the same thing cannot be done 
> with the inline keyword (use AC_C_INLINE)?

This is a good observation. You are free to change your copy of gettext.h
to use just 'inline' instead of this cascaded #ifdef, and use AC_C_INLINE.

> To me, it sounds like a bad 
> idea to support inline only with C++ compilers and GCC, since GCC 
> probably isn't the only C compiler supporting C99's inline.

Yes. On the other hand, I wanted to avoid the use of an autoconf macro here,
because if a maintainer forgets to use AC_C_INLINE, his users will get fatal
compilation errors on some platforms. Whereas in the current state, the
worst effect is some unneeded binary code in executables on some platforms.

Bruno