Re: How can Autoconf help with the transition to stricter compilation defaults?

Paul Eggert <[email protected]> Tue, 15 Nov 2022 12:27:03 -0800
Newsgroups dev.linux.lists.c-std-porting
Organization UCLA Computer Science Department
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 2022-11-15 11:27, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> Another perspective is that autoconf shouldn't get in the way of
> making the C and C++ toolchain more secure by default.

Can you cite any examples of a real-world security flaw what would be 
found by Clang erroring out because 'char foo(void);' is the wrong 
prototype? Is it plausible that any such security flaw exists?

On the contrary, it's more likely that Clang's erroring out here would 
*introduce* a security flaw, because it would cause 'configure' to 
incorrectly infer that an important security-relevant function is 
missing and that a flawed substitute needs to be used.

Let's focus on real problems rather than worrying about imaginary ones.