Phillip Helbig wrote:
> > Clive wrote:
> > > Yes, of course. But in turn vendors should help potential bug reporters
> > > by giving them information on known bugs.
> > >
> > > Is that too much to ask?
> I wrote:
> > Yes, it is, simply because there's no measure on the manifold of
> > "expressions of compiler bugs" to define a neighborhood. There's no way
> > to express: This compiler bug will cause this [ exhaustive list
> > included ] source codes fail to return the correct results.
and Phillip replied:
> I don't think it is too much to ask. At least some vendors have this
> list which Clive wants: it's in the release notes for the next version
> of the compiler, which detail, among other things, which problems were
> fixed since the last compiler.
Then, I think, you didn't read what Clive wrote:
"Many times when I have taken the time to submit a full bug report I
have
found that all that effort has been wasted, as the vendor simply replies
saying "we already know all about that bug, you can get the fix
here..."."
He wants a facility to enable him to determine *beforehand* whether a
certain bug report is superfluous.
I'm sorry, but I'm convinced (beyond repair, probably) - based on
categorizing, and fixing, bug reports for GNU Fortran - that this is
*impossible*. Period. There's no way a compiler writer (vendor) can
exhaustively list the source code for routines/programs that will fail
because of "Compiler bug X [download a patch here]".
I hope someone who's more into theoretical computer science can prove
that this is equivalent to the halting problem. I'm just a lowly
physicist.
--
Toon Moene - mailto:[log in to unmask] - phoneto: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
GNU Fortran 77: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77_news.html
GNU Fortran 95: http://g95.sourceforge.net/ (under construction)
|