Re: g++-3.3 should warn about class/struct equivalence

[martin@v.loewis.de (Martin v. Löwis)]

Thomas Richter <thor@math.TU-Berlin.DE> writes:

> g++-3.3 should warn about an object declared as a class that is later
> on used as a "struct". This would simplify the generation of portable
> code as at least one other popular compiler will generate warnings for
> this case that could be easily avoided by this additional g++
> warning. Besides, implementation seems to be simple for me.

I strongly disagree. gcc should *not* warn about such things. This is
like asking for a warning in the code

   printf("%s\n", "Hello");

Warning: the return value of the function is ignored

*Of course* it is ignored, this is the clear and direct intention of
this code, no need to warn. Likewise, *of course* you still refer to
the same thing whether you call it class or struct. There is
absolutely nothing wrong with doing so, and the compiler should not
warn about it.

A compiler that does warn about mixing class and struct keywords is
plain broken, and users of that compiler need to accept that they have
to work around this brokenness (e.g. by upgrading to a later version
of that compiler). They may also chose to put a #pragma warn in their
code to suppress that warning.

Regards,
Martin