sys-protos.h and man pages concerning dlerror()

dlerror() was changed in /usr/include/dlfcn.h in cvs in May 2001 by adding the const qualifier to its return value:

-extern char*dlerror __P((void));
+extern const char*dlerror __P((void));

but, the change was not reflected in the dlerror() man page (missing const qualifier). Not a major problem. just add the const qualifier to the man page.

/usr/src/gnu/egcs/gcc/sys-protos.h hasn't been updated in 3 years. From what i read, it is used by gcc to convert old-style incomplete function declarations with ones listed in the file (if they are functions listed in the file). sys-protos.h still has dlerror() without the updated const qualifier. This can be easily fixed by just adding the const qualifier to dlerror() in sys-protos.h.

The *real* question I have: is it possible that discrepencies between declarations in sys-protos.h and code implementations could cause problems? I'm assuming old-style declarations would have to be used for it to even matter. For instance, if a declaration was updated from taking an int to an unsigned int in a standard library or header or whatever, an old-style declaration would not reflect those changes if it wasn't updated in sys-protos.h (which hasn't been updated in 3 years) and then a problem might occur. Perhaps not (that's why i'm asking). And, if what i'm assuming is true, avoiding use of old-style declarations would negate this problem. On the other hand, if there are any old-style declarations being used, then sys-protos.h would need to be combed through for discrepencies, like the missing const qualifier for dlerror(). -David Puckett Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com Received on Mon Dec 30 06:43:22 2002