Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!bbn!drilex!dricejb
From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Is lint maintained?
Message-ID: <8809@drilex.UUCP>
Date: 7 Mar 90 00:16:41 GMT
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
Lines: 30

I have a question for Unix vendors out there.  Is your lint
maintained?  By this, has your lint received any improvements
other than emergency bug fixes since you first released it,
or received the tape from AT&T?

If so, is there some way that you can get it to shut up
about everything, including casts of malloc?

Background: 'lint' is frequently referred to by C users
when the propensity of Unix C compilers to accept almost any stupid
but valid code without comment is bemoaned.  I use lint a lot; if
I'm debugging a problem, I typically try a lint check before
I run a debugger.

However, 'lint' was first described around 1980, and at that time it
was mentioned that 'there are some things that you just can't get lint
to shut up about'.  I have found this generally true in practice--
the mode which checks casts for portability is essentially useless,
because any decent program will have a number of calls to malloc.
I have found other things that I couldn't get lint to shut up about,
as well--casts of long to int, etc.

Yet it appears to me that lint has received little work, from 
commercial or academic developers, over the last 10 years.  Certainly
I know of no common enhancements to tell it about malloc alignment, etc.
Am I just misinformed?
-- 
Craig Jackson
dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com
{bbn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}