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Re: gEDA-user: PCB Patches: Use c99 bool instead of manual typedef.



I wrote:
> I started working on stuff in the PCB source, and found that it uses a
> typedef called 'Boolean' rather than the c99 bool type.  Please find
> three patches that transition PCB over to using the c99 bool ...

Ineiev wrote:
> What are the advantages? is current implementation broken for some
> platform, modern or future?

Advantages:
      * Compiler is able to perform optimisations specific to the bool
        type.
      * Additional type safety.
      * Code becomes less obfuscated (in my mind it's similar to
        typedef'ing an int to be Int) and so more approachable by new
        hackers.
      * Crucially for me, any code in PCB used outside PCB's source
        doesn't have to have this additional "Boolean" type cluttering
        the place up.

I wrote:
> The PCB build scripts tell the compiler to use the 'gnu99' standard
> (C99 with GNU extensions)

Ineiev wrote:
> I believe it does not in general case, and current sources do build
> with c89 compilers as far as I know.

On closer inspection, the build scripts in PCB don't specifically
require C99.  I was looking at the arguments it was feeding to the
compiler.  What I said earlier in this thread about adding
AC_HEADER_STDBOOL still applies. 

(Also note that C99 introduced the ubiquitous '//' inline comment into
the C standard.)

Cheers,

Rob

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