Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 19:21:37 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
cc: DJGPP-WORKERS <djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: iso646.h and some questions
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On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

> > IMHO, the prototypes should be added to the headers only *after* the
> > functions are already available.  Otherwise, we might get conflicts (when
> > building a package that provides its private versions of the missing
> > functions), and some people think that the existence of a prototype is an
> > evidence that the function is provided by the library. 
> 
> I oppose to this point. As long as there are, indeed, plans to implement
> these functions in the near future, I think it's best to put in the
> prototypes right now, as a method of staking a claim. Among others, it may
> help catching unwary program authors that use names now reserved by the
> new standard library, for their own purposes.

There's a practical problem here with porting GNU packages.  These 
usually proble the library for missing or incorrect functionality and use 
their own functions as substitutes.  Prototypes of unimplemented 
functions have higher risk of clashing with the GNU implementations 
because nobody has yet tried the (non-existent) functions.

I see no real value in ``claiming'' prototypes of nonexistent functions.