Merge branch 'jc/post-c89-rules-doc'

We have been trying out a few language features outside c89; the
coding guidelines document did not talk about them and instead had
a blanket ban against them.

* jc/post-c89-rules-doc:
  CodingGuidelines: spell out post-C89 rules
This commit is contained in:
Junio C Hamano 2019-07-25 13:59:22 -07:00
commit fe9dc6b08c

View file

@ -195,10 +195,30 @@ For C programs:
by e.g. "echo DEVELOPER=1 >>config.mak".
- We try to support a wide range of C compilers to compile Git with,
including old ones. That means that you should not use C99
initializers, even if a lot of compilers grok it.
including old ones. You should not use features from newer C
standard, even if your compiler groks them.
- Variables have to be declared at the beginning of the block.
There are a few exceptions to this guideline:
. since early 2012 with e1327023ea, we have been using an enum
definition whose last element is followed by a comma. This, like
an array initializer that ends with a trailing comma, can be used
to reduce the patch noise when adding a new identifer at the end.
. since mid 2017 with cbc0f81d, we have been using designated
initializers for struct (e.g. "struct t v = { .val = 'a' };").
. since mid 2017 with 512f41cf, we have been using designated
initializers for array (e.g. "int array[10] = { [5] = 2 }").
These used to be forbidden, but we have not heard any breakage
report, and they are assumed to be safe.
- Variables have to be declared at the beginning of the block, before
the first statement (i.e. -Wdeclaration-after-statement).
- Declaring a variable in the for loop "for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)"
is still not allowed in this codebase.
- NULL pointers shall be written as NULL, not as 0.