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From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: lint and volatile and const constructs
Message-ID: <1252@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Fri, 25-Sep-87 16:35:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.1252
Posted: Fri Sep 25 16:35:44 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 03:05:40 EDT
References: <832@ektools.UUCP> <279@apr.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 29
Keywords: lint volatile const c updating
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.questions:4264 comp.lang.c:4543

In article <279@apr.UUCP> whp@apr.UUCP (Wayne Pollock) writes:
>It is a bad idea to modify your source code (such as lint).  The simpler
>approach is to add a global include file:
>	#ifdef lint
>	#define volatile
>	...
>	#endif

If (as is traditional) lint is implemented as a shell script, then modifying
the "source code" is trivial: search for "-Dlint"; add "-Dvolatile= -Dconst=".
As has been mentioned, this doesn't handle warts like "const x=3;".

>If you really need to modify lint, you must modify the yacc grammar which is
>used for lint.  As I recall, the semantics of volatile and const place them
>in the "sc-specifier" class, just like register or auto.

You recall incorrectly.  At most one storage-class-specifier may be given in a
declaration, but "auto const" and "static const" and "extern const" are all
legal.  As of the Oct86 dpANS const is a type-specifier like "int", but I've
heard X3J11 is rewriting this part.  Note also that a declaration such as
"const char * const x" is legal, and does not mean the same thing as either
"const char * x" or "char * const x".

Of course, a REAL fix would not just ignore the new keyword; an ANSI lint
should warn about a cast from const to non-const, or an apparent attempt to
modify a const.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
(I have directed followups to comp.lang.c only)