1.4.16 compile failure on SunOS-5.7

[Volker Borchert]

After quite a lot of warnings about
"`struct stat' declared inside parameter list",
the build finally aborts with

\
        source='../../lib/tmpdir.c' object='tmpdir.o' libtool=no \
        DEPDIR=.deps depmode=gcc /bin/ksh ../../build-aux/depcomp \
        gcc  -I. -I../../lib   -I/usr/local/include  -ggdb -O2 -c ../../lib/tmpdir.c
In file included from ../../lib/tmpdir.c:39:
sys/stat.h:914: warning: `struct stat' declared inside parameter list
sys/stat.h:914: warning: its scope is only this definition or declaration, which is probably not what you want.
../../lib/tmpdir.c: In function `direxists':
../../lib/tmpdir.c:68: storage size of `buf' isn't known


Regards
        Volker Borchert

[eblake]

On 03/31/2012 04:48 AM, Volker Borchert wrote:

>
>
> After quite a lot of warnings about
> "`struct stat' declared inside parameter list",
> the build finally aborts with
>
> \
>         source='../../lib/tmpdir.c' object='tmpdir.o' libtool=no \
>         DEPDIR=.deps depmode=gcc /bin/ksh ../../build-aux/depcomp \
>         gcc  -I. -I../../lib   -I/usr/local/include  -ggdb -O2 -c ../../lib/tmpdir.c
> In file included from ../../lib/tmpdir.c:39:
> sys/stat.h:914: warning: `struct stat' declared inside parameter list
> sys/stat.h:914: warning: its scope is only this definition or declaration, which is probably not what you want.
> ../../lib/tmpdir.c: In function `direxists':
> ../../lib/tmpdir.c:68: storage size of `buf' isn't known

Thanks for the report.  However, SunOS-5.7 (aka Solaris 7) is so old
that gnulib no longer actively caters to it:

https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/gnulib.html#Target-Platforms

The problem appears to be that the gnulib replacement headers are
missing a workaround to pick up the proper system header that defines
'struct stat'; it may be fixable in gnulib.  If you want to tackle
patching gnulib to cater to this old of a system, and your patches are
maintainable, then there is a possibility that a future m4 release using
newer gnulib will work on a system that old.  But for now, I'm afraid
that you are trying to port to museumware and won't get very far.

--
Eric Blake   eblake@...    [phone]
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org