bug#11935: XINT etc. should be functions

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> I think it'll be a fine idea but only when -Og is supported in
>> Debian stable.
> I'd rather not wait three (or five!) more years to install helpful
> changes like this.  I might not live that long.

OTOH we've been using the current macros for so many years that the
change is not exactly urgent.

> If it's unacceptable to maintain both a macro and a function
> implementation for a few primitives, we can simply have the
> latter invoke the former -- that way, there's only one actual
> implementation.

I could live with that.

> Or if you prefer, we can omit the functions entirely.

Sounds even better.

> We can leave in a FIXME reminding us to
> change the macros to functions after the three years or so.

Sure.

> Another option is that you could download and install
> GCC 4.8.x on your Debian stable host.

I'm running Debian testing on most of my machines, so it should get to
4.8 pretty soon, but as others have pointed out, Debian is not the only
problem.  I generally take "Debian stable" as a reference, not because
I use Debian but because it seems that if something is in Debian stable
you can mostly assume it's also available in most other contexts.


        Stefan