[cfe-dev] proposal: every warning should have a -W flag

[David Blaikie]

> We can have our cake and eat it too, perhaps.  Group the warnings
> logically, but allocate blocks of warning numbers with padding for
> future expansion.  For instance, numeric warnings are all in the D1000
> - D1100 range.  Then we can still split warnings into more specific
> diagnostics, allocate them new numbers, but are able to keep the
> grouping cohesive.

To be honest I wasn't really pushing the numbering aspect of VC's
diagnostic handling so much as I was the unique-ness.

> This, of course, is predicated on the thought that having individual
> warning numbers is useful to the majority of people.  From personal
> experience, I like having a warning number because it makes it easier
> to Google for others who've had the same issue.  Most diagnostics
> contain source-specific information, and so Google searches become a
> guessing game of what keywords are important.  YMMV

But yes, this is the selling point for having numbered diagnostics. I
do actually prefer the named diagnostics that clang uses in both
compiler output and pragma suppressions - they're more
self-documenting (when I look through a make file & see suppressions
for 3 different VC warnings as just numbers - they either have to have
comments or I have to google up the docs to see what they do. With
clang I don't get random numbers in my compiler messages, instead I
get a nice string telling me the name of the warning so I can suppress
it if I want (or turn it on if I'm not seeing that in another build)).

& the names clang uses should be fairly searchable (obviously as clang
usage increases & these sort of questions turn up in documentation,
forums, etc, more)

- David