Re: error messages with ranges

[Karl Berry]

Hi Manuel,

    This is a patch to standards.texi to specify error messages with
    multiple ranges. 

Here is rms's response:

  Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:44:45 -0400
  From: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
  To: address@hidden (Karl Berry)
  Subject: Re: address@hidden: error messages with ranges]

  I think this is not a good idea.
  Putting multiple locations in one error message is not helpful
  and makes it harder to read.

  There are situations where GCC needs to mention two different
  places in the source -- for instance, two conflicting declarations
  for one symbol.  It does this by issuing two error messages, one
  with each location.  The text states how they are related.

  In practice this is perfectly clear and convenient.  Putting them in a
  single error message would make it harder to read.

  Please ask the Clang and GCC developers to state the practical
  advantages they see in this new format.

You might as well send your replies directly to him.  I don't need to be
in this loop (and I'll be offline the rest of this week).