Ulrich Drepper via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> writes: > I talked to Jonathan the other day about adding all the C++ library APIs to > the name hint file now that the size of the table is not really a concern > anymore. > > Jonathan mentioned that he has to create and maintain a similar file for > the module support. It needs to list all the exported interfaces and this > is mostly a superset of the entries in the hint table. > > Instead of duplicating the information it should be kept in one place. > Neither file itself is a natural fit because the additional information > needed (e.g., the standard version information for the name hint table) is > not needed in the other location. > > Hence, let's use a simple database, a CSV file for simplicity, and generate > both files from this. Easily done, I have an appropriate script and a CSV > file with the information of both Jonathan's current export file and the > current state of the name hint table. > > The only detail that keeps me from submitting this right now is the way the > script is implemented. This is just a natural fit for a Python script. > The default installation comes with a csv module and there are nice ways to > adjust and output boilerplate headers like those needed in those files. > > It would be possible to create separate awk scripts (there is only one > Python script) but it'll be rather ugly and harder to maintain than the > Python version. > > Of course the problem is: I don't think that there is yet any maintainer > tool written in Python (except some release engineering tools). The > question is therefore: is it time to lift this restriction? I cannot today > imagine any machine capable of serving a gcc developer which doesn't also > have a Python implementation. As long as there is no dependency on exotic > modules I doubt that anything will break.
FWIW, I agree it's past time to lift the no-Python restriction, and that Python is a natural fit for stuff like this. Thanks, Richard
