On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:28 AM, David A. Wheeler <dwhee...@dwheeler.com> wrote: > Jim Meyering said: >> Did you realize that several GNU projects now enable virtually >> every gcc warning that is available (even including those that >> are new in the upcoming gcc-4.8, for folks that use bleeding edge gcc) >> via gnulib's manywarnings.m4 configure-time tests? >> >> Of course, there is a list of warnings that we do disable, >> due to their typical lack of utility and the invasiveness >> of changes required do suppress them. > > Is there any way that the autoconf (or automake) folks could make compiler > warnings much, much easier to enable? Preferably enabled by default when you > start packaging something? For example, could gnulib warnings and > manywarnings be distributed and enabled as *part* of autoconf? If not, could > autoconf at least strongly advertize the existence of these, and include > specific instructions to people on how to quickly install it? The autoconf > section on "gnulib" never even *MENTIONS* the "warnings" and "manywarnings" > stuff! And while automake has warnings, they are for the automake > configuration file... not for compilation. > > Compiler warning flags cost nearly nothing to turn on when you're *starting* > a project, but they're harder to enable later (a thousand warnings about the > same thing later is harder than fixing it the first time). And while some > warnings are nonsense, their use can make the resulting software much, much > better. If we got people to turn on warning flags all over the place, during > development, a lot of bugs would simply disappear. > GCC 4.8 added a couple of interesting flags (http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.8/changes.html): -fsanitize=address and -fsanitize=thread. Some reading about them is available at http://llvm.org/devmtg/2012-11/Serebryany_TSan-MSan.pdf.
It might be helpful to projects if the auto tools enabled one or both by default. The overhead on Address Sanitizer looks small compared to the payoff. Also, the new -Og requires a debug level (-g2, -g3, etc). Jeff _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf