Re: [musl] Re: [PATCH] memmem.3: Added list of known systems where this is available

From: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com>
To: noloader@gmail.com, musl@lists.openwall.com
Cc: Stefan Puiu <stefan.puiu@gmail.com>,
	Guillem Jover <guillem@hadrons.org>,
	Andrew Clayton <andrew@digital-domain.net>,
	linux-man@vger.kernel.org,
	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
	Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>,
	Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca>,
	Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>
Subject: Re: [musl] Re: [PATCH] memmem.3: Added list of known systems where this is available
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2022 16:11:45 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <6f103241-3703-bffb-8671-225612891e19@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAH8yC8=TWk=umVZ-mt29wzQe7xGMXYQ7cZ0rgCG88Dn3x7QLNA@mail.gmail.com>

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Hi Jeffrey,

On 11/23/22 15:55, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 23, 2022 at 9:29 AM Alejandro Colomar
> <alx.manpages@gmail.com> wrote:
>>   ...
>>>> In any case I also find it useful to have this kind of portability
>>>> information when deciding what to use in code.
>>
>> And I must admit it's also useful to me (this all started because Andrew and I
>> had to use memmem(3) at a project where macOS compatibility is relevant --not
>> critical, but relevant--).
> 
> If you are a die-hard free software person using GNU gear, then Gnulib
> provides memmem. There's no need to worry about availability or
> portability courtesy of Gnulib. See
> https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/memmem.html .

Thanks!

However, for this project I was talking about, it's not an option; such a 
dependency would not be accepted.

BTW, personally, I always found very confusing the usage of Gnulib compared to 
normal packaged libraries.  Maybe it's just me; don't know.  It also forces you 
to use GNU autotools, which I don't like at all.  I prefer the approach of 
libbsd, which just provides a couple of pc(5) files to allow using as a library 
or as an overlay over the system libc, and after that you're fine with whatever 
build system you prefer.  I know it has some issues, such as 
<https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libbsd/libbsd/-/issues/5>, which may be the 
reason Gnulib works that way, I don't know.

Guillem, do you think that issue with libbsd and <queue.h> can be fixed?  Or is 
it an inherent issue of the way the overlay works?  Maybe it would be 
interesting to fix it, as a proof of concept that something like Gnulib could be 
implemented in that way.

Cheers,

Alex

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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