[FFmpeg-devel] How to handle compiler warnings

[Luca Abeni]

Hi all,

Diego Biurrun wrote:
> The topic has come up again, it's time to discuss the subject.  I
> propose to try to avoid compiler warnings as much as possible in order
> to
> 
> - have cleaner code,
> - have important warnings not be drowned out,
> - make FFmpeg a programming textbook.
> 
> This does not include warning fixes that slow things down or obfuscate
> the code, but if in doubt I personally would err on the side of fixing
> the warning.
I agree about removing the number of warnings, if this is done in the
correct way (avoiding useless casts, etc...); if there are warnings that
cannot be removed without slowing down or obfuscating the code, maybe we
should add a comment like
/* The following line might generate a warning, because...
  * The warning cannot be easily removed without slowing the code because..
  */
in the code. In this way, we can avoid having people that submit wrong
patches for removing such warnings.

Finally, maybe we can have a configure option for enabling all the
possible warnings, and one for -Werror (both options disabled by
default).


			Luca