Re: [Jim Meyering] Re: [Bug-gnulib] strftime merge from Emacs

[Dave Love <d.love@dl.ac.uk>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     > 	[__hpux]: Include sys/_mbstate_t.h.
>
>     Using a macro like __hpux should be done only as a last resort.
>     I hope there is a better way.
>
> One idea is to test using Autoconf for the existence of such a file
> and include it if it exists.

That's the proposal.

> That will work provided there is no case
> where that file exists but including it is harmful.

The question is really whether there is any reason to think it might
be harmful, i.e. why wasn't it done like that originally?  If no-one
knows, it seems best just to do it, as it seems unlikely to cause
grief.

>     I haven't seen WINDOWSNT used before.
>     Here are some of the window-related macros I have seen:
>
>       _WIN32 WIN32 __WIN32__ __MSDOS__ WINDOWS32
>
> WINDOWSNT is what Emacs uses.  It is a GNU convention that we do not
> use the abbreviation "WIN" to refer to Windows.  Are those names
> used in any GNU packages?

Gcc actually defines them.

>     In any case, we try hard not to use system-dependent macros like that
>     and prefer to use the results of configure-time tests.
>
> That is preferable, but with a system as different from GNU as Windows is,
> code for a specific system will tend to be needed often.

This should be just a matter of defining the relevant macros in or via
config.nt.  Similarly with MacOS.