On 23/02/2011 17:59, DJ Delorie wrote:
> Ian Lance Taylor <i...@google.com> writes:
>> I believe lThese option files were adapted from Windows, and they are
>> primarily for use on Windows, which has much stricter limits on command
>> line length than most Unix systems. We should implement whatever
>> Windows implements.
>
> IIRC they were adapted from DJGPP, which got them from Borland C.
MSVC also has them, since at least VC6.0 if not earlier. Can't speak to the
exact etymology of them, but I don't think it really matters in any case,
because...
> Neither of these allowed comments, because who knows what a "comment" is
> for every single program out there?
>
> Historically, @files were generated by the Makefile just before they
> were used. There was never a need to add documentation inside them.
Well, there's no question of compatibility being needed between GNU ones and
MSVC ones in any case, since none of our command-line options match anyway, so
I don't see that compatibility should necessarily guide our decisions in this
matter. So if anyone (Basile?) does want to implement this, I can't see any
problem with choosing any arbitrary start-of-line-comment-char that can't
legally be part of a DOS filename; that should be unambiguous enough FAPP.
cheers,
DaveK
