On Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:56:27 -0700 Michael Forney <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Michael, > I know next to nothing about bc and what GNU extensions are used by > timeconst.bc, but being able to build a linux kernel sounds like a > good goal to me. However, if timeconst.bc can be changed to use only > portable features of bc (in a way that is acceptable to upstream), I > think that would be better than implementing the GNU extensions. > > Currently sbase (and GNU make/bc) is almost sufficient for building > linux, except for > - Usage `-n` flag in ln(1), which I think we should add. > - Usage of `\t` in sed bracket expressions. I sent a patch and it was > accepted, so this should be fixed in a future linux version (maybe > 4.17?). > - Usage of `stat -c "%s"` to determine file size. I sent a patch to > use `ls -dn`, but still need to respond to some comments. we may add flags if they make sense in a general manner, but not in the interest of compiling Linux or not. It is not our task to adapt to the extensive use of GNU-extensions in the Linux kernel for the heck of it. We saw how much work had to be put into the kernel when they tried to build it with clang, and we have the same exact problem with timeconst.bc here. If someone manages to get rid of the extensions and submit a patch to make it portable, I'm sure they'd merge it! With best regards Laslo -- Laslo Hunhold <[email protected]>
