Re: [PATCH] Tidy up 'make' output

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 02:02:17PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-06-18 at 19:46 +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 03:31:54PM -0700, Colin D Bennett wrote:
> > > I'm all for warning-free code, but if we try to
> > > use -Werror, the code won't even begin to compile in the current state.
> > 
> > Of course, I wasn't proposing to add -Werror in the current state and just
> > throw the hot potato into everyone ;-)
> > 
> > Ideally, someone (or all of us ;-)) could do the work to eliminate those
> > warnings, then add -Werror, and at that point it's the responsibility of
> > every contributor that new code is warning-free.
> 
> There will be some combinations of gcc and libraries that will produce
> warnings.  It should be easy to turn off -Werror on the make command
> line if necessary.
> 
> > So is the proposed situation you don't like, or the path that would be
> > needed to archieve it?
> 
> That's OK, but it's doesn't make build system changes unnecessary.  The
> less noisy build system will help find other messages that -Werror won't
> catch, such as linker warnings.  It will help understand what is
> happening and what is potentially wrong or suboptimal.
> 
> For example, I'm seeing warnings from xfs.c that nobody is fixing.  I
> can fix the warning by changing the code so that it does exactly what
> it's doing now but doesn't cause a warning.  The problem is, I don't
> see corresponding structures in the Linux xfs code.  I don't have time
> to investigate xfs implementation to see if I'm possibly hiding a bug.

Ok.  I got no time to review all the warnings and make -Werror possible atm,
but I agree that making them more visible can help archieve that in the long
term.

> It's also possible that somebody who want to install GRUB in xfs will be
> extra cautious when seeing the warning.  It's actually a good thing.
> Sure, not having the warning will be even better.

Based on my daily experience with people installing from packages, I assure
you they don't check the code for warnings ;-)

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What good is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)