Oppolzer - Informatik / Blog

Bernd Oppolzer wrote:
> Similar to C, all STATIC variables are placed in the WSA, to make the
> module "artificially" reentrant, even if the module changes its static
> variables.
>
> At our site, this idea was esspecially ill-fated, because we told our
> developers for some 20 years to make all the modules "naturally" reentrant,
> so why should we compile with the RENT option? But it took us - a colleague
> of mine and myself - 3 years (from 2003 to 2006) to convince the
> compiler group that the compiler option RENT does no good.
>
> But in other - larger - branches of the same company, the RENT compile
> option is still alive.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Bernd
>
>

One of the PL/I compiler developers once told me that the generated code will
always be reentrant: that's a design goal. (The PL/I and C compilers use the
same code generation engine, I'm told, so the point should still be correct for
C.)

So I would say the RENT compile option is unnecessary, not that it "does no
good"; that makes it sound like it actually does harm. So why bother arguing
about including RENT or not if it makes no difference?


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Kind regards,

S.C.