Re: Patch: Remove gcc dependency in definition of inline functions

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> I have found an Autoconf macro that checks whether the compiler properly
> supports C99 inline semantics. This would allow us to replace the
> __GNUC__ conditional with HAVE_C99_INLINE, in this case. Interestingly,
> however, this check results in GCC <=4.2 *not* supporting C99 inline,
> apparently because it produces redundant copies of static inline
> functions. But GCC 4.2 is currently Debian stable, for example, so
> de-supporting that is probably not yet an option.

Some of us are using much older gcc's than that, too ;-). But actually
I think this test is 100% bogus anyhow. What it appears to rely on is
the compiler failing to do semantic error testing on an inline function
that it doesn't need to instantiate. That's a behavior that I'm pretty
sure is gcc-specific rather than required by C99, and in any case has
very little to do with our requirements.

regards, tom lane