ANSIfication of 4BSD

[Chris Torek]

(I may regret this, but here goes. . . .)  Here is a hypothetical
question that has nothing to do with new languages (or does it?
oh never mind).

Suppose you had the chance to decide whether the next 4BSD
release---what I have been calling 4.3-tahoe---were changed
to be more in line with the dpANS, in that:

 0. the compiler were to accept (void *) as a type, and freely
    interconvert (void *) and any other pointer type;

 1. missing functions (e.g., strtol, memmove) were written;

 2. functions that now take or return (char *) (e.g., malloc)
    were changed to take or return (void *);

 3. sizeof() were changed to yeild (unsigned int) constants rather
    than (int) constants;

 4. the unsigned widening rules were changed from sign-preserving
    to value-preserving;

or any combination of the above.  I PROMISE NOTHING!  (For that matter,
I really have little say in the whole affair.)  But 0. is already half
done, and the other half is only a one-line change in the new
compilers; I had started on 1. when I noticed this.

Note that 0. and 1. break nothing.  No one uses (void *) in 4BSD
yet, for the simple reason that the compiler bombs if you do.  (Try
it.  It thinks variables of type (void *) are undefined.)  The
missing functions are generally simple and convenient.

Number 2 breaks code in such a way that it still works.  Declarations
for malloc and others would appear only in <stdlib.h> and in the lint
libraries.  Since the existing compilers internally make all pointers
the same, calls to a (char*) malloc work the same as those to a (void*)
malloc; while lint would yell, old code would continue to compile
and run.  (As a bonus, `int *p = malloc((unsigned)10*sizeof(*p));'
would no longer have to be written `int *p = (int *)malloc...'.  With
#3, the (unsigned) cast can be discarded as well.)

Number 3 breaks code; there is no doubt as to that.  It probably does
not break a great deal of code, and that sizeof() yeilds a signed
integer has been a bug all along.  (Consider that on a PDP-11 with
split I&D, the data space size is 65,534 bytes [there is a shim at data
address 0], and that this only fits in an unsigned int.)  But it does
break code.

Number 4 breaks more code, and is ugly to boot.  I think this is a
terrible rule, but I doubt it will change before the dpANS becomes
a true ANS, so we will be stuck with it eventually.  (`noalias',
on the other hand, may well be struck down.  I am betting that we,
the forces of good, shall prevail against this abomination.  What?
Oh, yes, I shall write to X3J11 ... soon :-) .  Const and volatile
are likely to stay, but to do them right requires more compiler
work than I want to do.)

Before anyone asks, jamming prototypes into PCC is out.

(Another possibility is to have options for some or all of these.
This is more work and is thus less likely to get done.)

Anyway, if you want to vote for or against any or all of the
things listed above, send me mail.  Again, I make no promises
beyond collecting and summarising replies.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris at mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris