Re: Android port

[Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Unless there's a misunderstanding, your understanding contradicts what
> I wanted to convey in the quoited text.

It's possible that I had misunderstood you. In fact, I don't fully
understand your argument even now:

> The individual gl_cv_*
> variables, if overridden by mingw-cfg.site, will completely shadow the
> feature tests and will from that moment on make detecting any new
> needs for that and dealing with those new needs our responsibility,
> with nothing to aid us.  Which in practice means we could have a
> broken port on Windows if some other functionality, which _is_ needed
> on Windows, will become dependent on a test that we've overridden via
> these variables.
> 
> Which is why I prefer to disable a module or a function replacement
> without overriding the individual functionality tests which led to the
> inclusion of the module and/or replacement of a function.  Disabling
> the module or a function replacement just says that this
> module/function is not needed or is implemented differently, without
> saying anything about the respective functionalities.

I'd like to view this question from the process point-of-view:

If some new functionality test is introduced in gnulib/m4/printf.m4,
be it
  (a) because a bug has been discovered on a non-mingw platform
      (such as recently the %lc bug), or
  (b) because a bug has been discovered on mingw, or
  (c) because a new ISO C or POSIX standard requires new functionalities
      (such as recently the support of %b),
what do you expect to see and do in Emacs?

In all three cases, we update the Gnulib documentation, but don't put
an entry into gnulib/NEWS.

Will you typically want to
  - review all format strings in Emacs, to see whether they are affected?
  - add some note to Emacs-internal coding guidelines, e.g. to the effect
    that %b should not be used?
  - review the mingw-specific *printf override, to see whether it
    needs a workaround (in case b) or an extension (in case c)?
  - or do nothing at all?

Bruno