Re: [Sdcc-user] Library compile question

[Paul <pa...@pj...>]

>
>
>Just as a matter of interest was there anything about my imprecise
>paraphrase that made it difficult or even impossible to do the initial test?
>
Yes, there was plenty wrong with it (and the inadaquete nature of the 
request as a whole)

My view of "the intial test" was to discover the _reason_ why you get 
this error message, and then to fix the problem, both for you and 
others.  Or at least submit a (useful) bug report, so it can eventually 
get fixed instead of being forgotten.  The "fix" might be something in 
SDCC itself, or perhaps some additional sanity check and warning so you 
get a more meaningful error message, or perhaps some improvement in the 
documentation or SDCC website.  The "fix" might have been a "workaround" 
based on understanding the nature of the problem, which is still better 
than nothing.

Unlike you, my primary goal is to contribute to making SDCC better.  I 
sincerely did intend to help you along the way.  Bernhard's motivation 
was probably quite similar, and he's one of the very active developers 
(so he could do a LOT more than I can when it comes to the SDCC code).

The main point is that my goal was to understand the reason why you get 
the error message.  I spent some significant time attempting to 
duplicate your problem, based on the very limited bits of information 
you provided.  You did not even spend the small effort to copy-n-paste 
the actual error message or give other useful information that would 
have helped me (and could have lessened the time I had to spend trying).



What your goal was, I can not tell.  It seems like you wanted someone to 
try to reproduce your problem... but apparantly not badly enough to be 
bothered to put enough information in the message to allow someone to 
duplicate what you did.  Maybe you wanted someone to try something 
similar, but not equivilant to what you tried, and report if it worked?




[snip... not feeling like a flame war today]

>when all I was wanting to know was whether I had made a basic command-line
>error when issuing the compile request, or whether there was a problem that
>someone else could duplicate by trying the compile themself.
>
But you did not even give the exact command line you typed.  You didn't 
even show which version of SDCC and Windows you are using.


>Let me re-state my question:
>
Are you trying to be intentionally annoying, by restating the question 
just as uselessly as the first time ??

>When I try to recompile any of the SDCC library files that use a pointer,
>for example malloc.c, I get an error message.
>
Again, not showing the error message.

> Is there anything wrong with
>the syntax of the command I am using the do the compile,
>
Again, not showing the command as you typed it.

> or is there a
>problem that has crept in somewhere? Could somebody who uses the windows
>
Again, not telling which version of Windows.

>binaries
>
Again, not clearly specifying which version (sdcc --version)

> please tell me if they can compile OK, in which case there must be
>something wrong with the way I have installed SDCC on my PC, or if they
>can't compile OK then I guess there must be something wrong with SDCC - in
>which case if I can help I will provide as much information as I can.
>

I'm still no closer to understanding the _reason_ why you got that error 
(and I still haven't even seen the exact error message).  I still have 
no idea how to reproduce the problem.  I still done even know the line 
number where SDCC reported that parse error.

So if there is a problem with SDCC, or something SDCC could do to give a 
more informative error/warning, or some way the installation or 
documentation could be improved, none of us is any closer to learning 
anything useful from the incident that could be used to improve SDCC.

And after all this, you're still no closer, or certainly not much 
closter, to resolving your problem.  You've only succeeded to annoy me 
and possibly others who would have liked to "get to the bottom" of this 
problem and truely understand why it happened.



Paul