From: mcastle AT cs DOT umr DOT edu
Subject: Re: yet another question about gcc-2.3.3
To: peprbv AT cfa0 DOT harvard DOT edu (Bob Babcock)
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:57:09 CST
Cc: iis!arnstein AT sun DOT com, djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu

Amazingly enough Bob Babcock said:
> >It seems that there is considerable interest in making djgpp compliant with
> >gcc version 2.3.3.  It also seems that a principal obstacle to this goal is
> >the existence of files in gcc-2.3.3 that have names longer than 8 characters.
> >
> >My question is, what's the big deal?  Change a few file names, change the
> >Makefile(s), problem solved (?).
> 
> I don't know if this is the problem, but one thing which would make it more
> difficult is if some of the include files have long names.  Then source code
> changes would be necessary, possibly in many places.  One possibility would be
> a preprocessor to adjust names in #include statements.  (I thought about using
> command line args: -Dlongfilename=shrtname, but the C preprocessor won't do
> this.)
> 

I imagine it's probably more than just include files (btw, I think the
qddvx libs have a tool that will fix the include files).  It's probably
intermediate files, such as temp files, precompiled headers (which already
break under 2.2.2) and other such conveniences.  

Q: There have been mention of rms' distaste for DOS (understandable), but if
he really didn't want to support dos (ie insist that 2.3.x break under 8.3
filenames), why would he have allowed inclusion of DOS patches in the first
place?

(if it true, it reeks of the folklore of Gates saying "the next release of DOS
isn't finished until 123 won't run").

regards,
mrc
-- 
Mike Castle .-=NEXUS=-.  Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly
  mcastle AT cs DOT umr DOT edu     and be right all the time, or not work at all
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    We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.  -- Watchmen