Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!decvax!purdue!umd5!trantor.umd.edu!chris
From: chris@trantor.umd.edu (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: varargs.h vs. lint
Message-ID: <2365@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 88 09:04:52 GMT
References: <1608@byzantium.UUCP> <1632@mhres.mh.nl> <51@vsi.UUCP> <7361@brl-smoke.ARPA> <1078@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Sender: ris@umd5.umd.edu
Reply-To: chris@trantor.umd.edu (Chris Torek)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 39
Keywords: arguments, varargs

In article <1078@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP
(Dan Heller) writes:
>I have reservations about wanting to use varargs for _all_ the arguments
>passed to the function.  While lint be be told not to "complain", it avoids
>lint's ability to find potential mistakes in the calling routines.

True enough.  I have found, however, that /*VARARGSn*/ does not quite
work as advertised; and the following trick enables type checking
while still using varargs according to definition:

	#ifdef lint
	/* VARARGS ARGSUSED */
	message(fmt) char *fmt; { }
	#define message _lint_message
	#endif lint

	/* VARARGS */
	message(va_alist)
		va_dcl
	{
		va_list l;

		va_start(l);
		...
		va_end(l);
	}
	#undef message

This creates warnings about _lint_message being unused, but a short
`grep' fixes that right up:

	lint ... | grep -v '_lint_.* defined.*but never used'

The dpANS would suggest a name other than _lint_message; X_lint_message
should be fine.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Computer Science, +1 301 454 7163
(still on trantor.umd.edu because mimsy is not yet re-news-networked)
Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu		Path: ...!uunet!mimsy!chris