Weird problem with C compiler under SCO - I can't believe it!

[Russ Kepler]

In article <14561 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> scs at adam.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit) writes:
>In article <71 at promark.UUCP> mark at promark.UUCP (Mark J. DeFilippis) writes:
>>The following short section of code does not compile using SCO XENIX 2.3.1
>>and the 2.2.1 Development system, and I can't figure out why.
>>
>>1 main()
>>2 {
>>3 	char *cdecl;
>>4 }
>>
>>Yields the errors:
>>             error(3) : error 59 : syntax error : ';'
>>
>>[ rest deleted for brevity, turn out cdecl is a *keyword*]
>
>The problem, of course, is that in many PeeCee environments
>"cdecl" is a new _keyword_, and keyword namespace pollution is
>even more onerous than, say, external linkage namespace
>pollution.
>
>Mark's comments perfectly express the exasperation which is
>(properly) felt by anyone faced with a misguidedly "extended"
>and therefore nonstandard environment.  (No fair saying "but who
>would ever name a variable 'cdecl?'."  The same problem bit me,
>when I wrote a version of the ever-popular cdecl program.)
>

But this isn't the worst; I couldn't port to a major European
hardware platform because they decided that 'near' and 'far' 
weren't only keywords but that keywords that weren't yet 
implemented couldn't be redefined... can you say catch-22?  
After changing only 2500 lines of code (lets see now, sed(1),
uh-huh, '-f', yep, 'for i in *.[ch]', there we go) the code
will now compile.

Then the *real* trouble starts.  Lots of code in lots of 
libraries don't hide the entry points.  'movblk' seems rather
more popular than it used to be, 'send' is great when you 
start including the socket libs (and using 'em).

When I'm faced with one of the 'it's got to work!' situations
I start looking for common named routines/variables in my code
*and* the libs that are being included.  A quick 'nm *.a | grep 
-v ...' to a comm and I can find the duplicate.  A quick 
#define in the highest #include, a recompile and we're back in
business... after a few hours of ranting, raving, etc.

I wish that somewhere in /lib there was a file of all entry
points in all of the libs - and a standard way of comparing 
with your code's entry points.  Any pointers out there?

-- 
Russ Kepler -  Basis International
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