[cfe-dev] Using C++11 in clang/tools/extra

[Vane, Edwin]

Since clang/tools/extra is not necessary to build/run clang itself I think this repo is safe from these points.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Blaikie [mailto:dblaikie at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:32 AM
To: Vane, Edwin
Cc: cfe-dev at cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: [cfe-dev] Using C++11 in clang/tools/extra

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 7:15 AM, Vane, Edwin <edwin.vane at intel.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It came up in a recent code review (http://llvm-reviews.chandlerc.com/D136) that C++11 features aren't allowed in the codebase. I can understand the reason for this in the LLVM and clang codebases as they're both widely used. However, would it be a problem to use C++11 officially in clang/tools/extra? It's not nearly as widely used and has less of a chance of impacting critical work in the community. Are there other problems I'm missing? If not, could the use of C++11 in clang/tools/extra be officially blessed?

I'd +1 this but with a few points:

1) one of the reasons C++11 isn't allowed is a bootstrapping issue (if we use the full power of C++11 that only Clang implements, how do we compile Clang? Do we end up in a situation where you have to build a series of older Clang's to step up to the latest?). This argument only really applies to the core path through the compiler - enough that we can build a Clang that can compile C++11. (this could, for example, mean that many of the middle end optimizers in LLVM could be written in C++11, so long as enough were kept in C++98 that we could
bootstrap)

2) Clang selfhosting isn't a bulletproof option on every platform.
Windows support, for example, is still a bit patchy. So we might need to restrict ourselves to the subset of C++11 available on a reasonable selection of platforms/compilers.

This is already being done in the lld project so we do have precedent for one possible set of tradeoffs & choices in this regard.

- David

>
> --
> Edwin Vane
>   Software Developer
>   Intel of Canada, Inc.
>
>
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