[LLVMdev] [API CHANGE (on trunk)] raw_fd_ostream defaults to overwrite

[Dan Gohman]

On Aug 25, 2009, at 10:43 AM, John Criswell wrote:


> Dan Gohman wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>>
>> The following describes an API change on trunk. The change is not in
>>
>> the 2.6 branch.
>>
>>
>>
>> The raw_fd_ostream class now defaults to overwriting its output file,
>>
>> and the
>>
>> F_Force flag which was introduced only recently is gone.  There's a
>>
>> new F_Excl flag to
>>
>> support users wanting the behavior of returning an error if the file
>>
>> exists, though no one
>>
>> actually appears to want this.
>>
>>
>>
>> Accompanying this is a change to the command-line tools. The tools
>>
>> will now overwrite
>>
>> their output files unconditionally, without needing the -f option.
>>
>>
>>
> Do the command line options still support the presence of -f for
> backwards compatibility?  I'm not too keen on changing years worth of
> Makefiles and scripts because people want raw_fd_ostream to exhibit
> different behavior.  I could care less what raw_fd_ostream does, but  
> in
> my opinion, options to core LLVM commands should not be removed unless
> they are obscure (i.e., nobody ever used them).

Yes, my change left the -f option in all the tools that had it,
including those where it no longer has any effect.

>
> Also, have you considered the potential impact of the command line
> option change?  Users may have written scripts or Makefiles that  
> depend
> on the fact that files do not get overwritten unless the -f option is
> specified; changing the behavior may break those scripts/Makefiles.

Such scripts/Makefiles will have to be updated. I expect this to be  
rare.

Dan