Minimum POSIX standard

Minimum POSIX standard

[Clinton Bunch]

What is the minimum POSIX standard modern Zsh code is intended to 
conform to?  Is development still trying to support systems that don't 
conform at least to POSIX.1-2001?

I didn't really find an answer in the Development Guide

  I find it hard to believe that modern versions of Zsh are expected to 
run on 20 year old systems.  Especially since there are un-ifdef uses of 
snprintf which wasn't standardized in the C library until the C99 spec.


P.S.  The mailing list archives need a better search feature.  I 
couldn't determine if this question had been asked before:)

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Mikael Magnusson]

On 10/23/22, Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
> What is the minimum POSIX standard modern Zsh code is intended to
> conform to?

As far as I'm aware, none.

-- 
Mikael Magnusson

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Clinton Bunch]

On 10/23/2022 4:57 PM, Mikael Magnusson wrote:
> On 10/23/22, Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>> What is the minimum POSIX standard modern Zsh code is intended to
>> conform to?
> As far as I'm aware, none.
>
Don't you think there should be?  The guidelines in the Development 
guide are somewhat vague and were apparently written more than 20 years 
ago.  (git log puts the first revision at 1999 and the updates seem to 
address git usage, typos, and module documentation)

Someone writing new code should have a baseline for what functions and 
types can be used without #ifdefs, autoconf tests and roll-your-own 
backup functions.  Something more recent than the C89 standard library 
with all it's flaws.  Are people still trying to get zsh 5.9 to run on 
SunOS 4 or AIX 3.25?

My personal opinion is that development should use at least the 
POSIX-1.2001 standard.  It's 20 years old.  That's surely old enough for 
any system still running.  (It's  certainly old enough that any such 
system is not supported by the vendor)

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Bart Schaefer]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 6:52 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>
> My personal opinion is that development should use at least the
> POSIX-1.2001 standard.  It's 20 years old.  That's surely old enough for
> any system still running.  (It's  certainly old enough that any such
> system is not supported by the vendor)

OTOH any system not supported by the vendor is exactly one where
somebody might be trying to build their own zsh binary.

That said, I thought we standardized on c99 rather than c89 quite some time ago.

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Clinton Bunch]

On 10/26/2022 3:18 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 6:52 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>> My personal opinion is that development should use at least the
>> POSIX-1.2001 standard.  It's 20 years old.  That's surely old enough for
>> any system still running.  (It's  certainly old enough that any such
>> system is not supported by the vendor)
> OTOH any system not supported by the vendor is exactly one where
> somebody might be trying to build their own zsh binary.
Trust me, they're used to the frustration and having to settle for older 
versions.  I never could get a gcc version more recent that 4.9 to build 
on HP-UX. And that's still technically supported. (Practically OTOH) :)
>
> That said, I thought we standardized on c99 rather than c89 quite some time ago.
Maybe I missed it, but the development guide kept talking about C89 and 
not confusing K&R compilers from what I read.

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Bart Schaefer]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 1:41 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>
> Maybe I missed it, but the development guide kept talking about C89 and
> not confusing K&R compilers from what I read.

Hm.  I would suspect that just means the development guide is sorely
lacking attention.

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Clinton Bunch]

On 10/26/2022 3:44 PM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 1:41 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>> Maybe I missed it, but the development guide kept talking about C89 and
>> not confusing K&R compilers from what I read.
> Hm.  I would suspect that just means the development guide is sorely
> lacking attention.

I wouldn't be surprised after reading the git log.

I swear though, I did try to search the ML archives for an answer before 
posting the question, but the search feature leaves much to be desired.

Re: Minimum POSIX standard

[Štěpán Němec]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2022 15:48:14 -0500
Clinton Bunch wrote:

> I swear though, I did try to search the ML archives for an answer
> before posting the question, but the search feature leaves much to be
> desired.

There's a public-inbox instance on https://inbox.vuxu.org which
includes the Zsh mailing lists. E.g.:

  https://inbox.vuxu.org/zsh-workers/?q=POSIX&o=-1

(See https://inbox.vuxu.org/zsh-workers/_/text/help/ for explanation of
the search syntax and other things.)

-- 
Štěpán