Re: diagnosing C errors, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux?

From	BartC <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: diagnosing C errors, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux?
Date	2016-09-09 12:31 +0100
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<16-09-019@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	<16-09-001@comp.compilers> <16-09-002@comp.compilers> <16-09-008@comp.compilers>

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On 06/09/2016 01:26, alexfrunews@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 3:56:56 PM UTC-7, jacobnavia wrote:
>> Why should they care? If you write duplicate switch cases its not their
>> fault, its yours.
>
> It is a constraint violation, and a trivial one, that the compiler
> must identify and report instead of silently producing code that is
> broken or appears to work by chance.

This is C. There are already plenty of things that it lets through that
are probably errors, and which are likely to crash the program.

For example, take a pointer to an array of ints, P. You'd normally
access an int by dereferencing P then applying the index: (*P)[i].

But if, by mistake, you index first then dereference: *(P[i]), then this
still compiles. But is likely to go wrong badly.

By contrast, an inadvertent duplicate case label is a 'soft' error; the
program just won't give the expected results. It's not going to read or
write all over memory it shouldn't, or at least not as directly as will
happen if the compiler blatantly allows pointers (to single targets) and
arrays to be interchanged.

--
Bartc

Thread

Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-02 03:01 +0000
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-09-05 00:20 +0200
    Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? alexfrunews@gmail.com - 2016-09-05 17:26 -0700
      Re: diagnosing C errors, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-09 12:31 +0100
        Re: diagnosing C errors, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-09 16:06 +0000
        Re: diagnosing C errors, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2016-09-10 00:38 +0200
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Nemo <nemo@invalid.invalid> - 2016-09-04 18:32 -0400
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-04 23:48 +0000
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-05 13:19 +0100
    Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-06 02:15 +0000
      Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-06 21:35 +0100
        Re: dead code or otherwise, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2016-09-08 11:58 -0400
          Re: dead code or otherwise, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-08 22:54 +0000
            Re: dead code or otherwise, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2016-09-09 00:51 -0400
              Re: dead code or otherwise, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-09 06:05 +0000
                Re: dead code or otherwise, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2016-09-09 14:02 -0400
                Re: dead code or otherwise, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-09 19:57 +0000
      Re: duplicate cases, was Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2016-09-07 17:01 +0100
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> - 2016-09-05 20:06 +0200
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? alexfrunews@gmail.com - 2016-09-05 17:22 -0700
    Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Kaz Kylheku <221-501-9011@kylheku.com> - 2016-09-06 02:18 +0000
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? rockbrentwood@gmail.com - 2016-09-07 17:00 -0700
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-12 18:42 +0000
    Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-12 22:37 +0100
      Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-13 17:35 +0000
        Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-14 18:14 +0000
  Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? rugxulo@gmail.com - 2016-09-26 15:29 -0700
    Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-27 05:40 +0000
      Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? rugxulo@gmail.com - 2016-09-27 16:36 -0700
        Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-28 18:16 +0100
          Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-29 14:03 +0100
            Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2016-09-29 22:57 -0400
            Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2016-09-30 05:03 +0200
              Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-30 12:00 +0100
                Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2016-09-30 20:15 +0200
                Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-10-01 22:17 +0100
            Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-30 12:28 +0100
              Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-10-17 22:49 +0100
        Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2016-09-28 21:24 -0400
      Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2016-09-28 01:01 -0400
        Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-29 02:55 +0000
      Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com - 2016-09-29 05:30 -0600
        Re: Alternative C compilers on x86_64 Linux? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2016-09-30 10:13 +0000

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