Re: [PATCH] Try one approach to compile a class as one compilation unit

On 13/04/13 15:20, Tor Lillqvist (via Code Review) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have submitted a patch for review:
>
>      https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/3373
>
> To pull it, you can do:
>
>      git pull ssh://gerrit.libreoffice.org:29418/core refs/changes/73/3373/1
>
> Try one approach to compile a class as one compilation unit
>
> In many cases the sources for some class have been split up into several
> source files, typically suffixed with a number 0, 1, 2 etc. Presumably this
> has been done because some compiler years ago was not capable of compiling all
> the source for that class at one time, or some other no longer relevant
> reason.
>
> It would be nice to get rid of this convention, so that clever compilers have
> a better chance of noticing unused private fields in a class, for instance. On
> the other hand, just combining the source files in question into one source
> file and removing the old source files from git leads to a discontinuity in
> version control history.
I don't believe that this split was done ( in this case ) to get around 
compiler limitations or whatnot.
It seems in this case that the split here is a logical one ( to 
distinguish between p-code operations that take
zero, one or two ( 0,1,2 :-) ) parameters. If you look in the source 
code at the SbiRuntime::StepXXX
methods you will see what I mean.
Still though, splitting the class source across different source files 
is not intuitive ( certainly I remember being
confused with this particular example when I first came across it ) I 
suppose perhaps a different class design
( or separation with helper classes or whatever ) would achieve the same 
goal.
Even though I have gotten used to the twisted reality that is 
Libreoffice source code organisation....
> Maybe a good compromise would be to introduce one new
> source file what would include the existing numbered source files? Or, as in
> this case, include the others into one already appropriately named source
> file?
sounds like that is probably the best solution to preserve the history, 
otoh it kinda sticks in the throat
not to prune these anachronisms

Noel