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From: schmidt@glacier.ics.uci.edu (Doug Schmidt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: gcc bug (possibly)
Message-ID: <8626@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 4 Mar 89 22:22:45 GMT
References: <9201@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu
Reply-To: Doug Schmidt <schmidt@glacier.ics.uci.edu>
Organization: University of California at Irvine: ICS Dept.
Lines: 54

In article <9201@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> budd@mist.cs.orst.edu (Tim Budd) writes:
++ Unless I am seriously mistaken in my understanding of prototypes, our version 
++ of gcc produces an error in what I believe is a correct program.  
++ Try the following:
++ 
++ extern int foo ( short );
++ 
++ int foo(x)
++ short x;
++ { ; }
++ 
++ I get a message that the argument doesn't match the prototype.
++ Works fine if I use int in place of short.
++ 
++ Anybody know if this has been fixed?

Since this ``bug'' in gcc is reported about once every 3 weeks let me
post the relevant section from the gcc.texinfo manual:

----------------------------------------
@item
Users often think it is a bug when GNU CC reports an error for code
like this:

@example
int foo (short);

int foo (x)
     short x;
@{@dots{}@}
@end example

The error message is correct: this code really is erroneous, because the
old-style non-prototype definition passes subword integers in their
promoted types.  In other words, the argument is really an @code{int},
not a @code{short}.  The correct prototype is this:

@example
int foo (int);
@end example
----------------------------------------

If you don't agree with the gcc interpretation of ANSI proto-types,
please post a message to bug-gcc@prep.ai.mit.edu with a quote from the
latest version of the dpANS standard to substantiate your claim.

thanks,

   Doug Schmidt        
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