Re: Is it time to take the middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?
Project / Subsystem
gcc / gcc
Date
2026-05-20
Proposer
Richard Biener <richard.guenther@gmail.com>
Source type
public_inbox
Consensus
Under Review
Sentiment
—/10
Technical tradeoffs
- • Reducing false positives in `-Wall` by moving less reliable warnings to `-Wextra`.
- • Potentially hiding real issues from developers who rely solely on `-Wall`.
- • Maintaining a balance between comprehensive warnings and a clean build process.
All attributes
- project
- gcc
- subsystem
- gcc
- patch_id
- —
- discussion_id
- 43f957da6e2d189b4b98d79b93d1a8f21f4230d5.camel@gwdg.de
- source_type
- public_inbox
- title
- Re: Is it time to take the middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?
- headline
- Should stringop/array warnings move from -Wall to -Wextra?
- tldr
- Debate continues on whether certain GCC warnings about string and array operations should be moved from `-Wall` to `-Wextra` due to high false-positive rates.
- proposer
- Richard Biener <richard.guenther@gmail.com>
- consensus
- Under Review
- outcome
- proposed
- sentiment_score
- —
- technical_tradeoffs
-
- • Reducing false positives in `-Wall` by moving less reliable warnings to `-Wextra`.
- • Potentially hiding real issues from developers who rely solely on `-Wall`.
- • Maintaining a balance between comprehensive warnings and a clean build process.
- series_id
- —
- series_role
- standalone
- series_parts
- []
- tags
-
- • gcc
- • warnings
- • -Wall
- • -Wextra
- • stringop
- bugzilla_url
- —
- date
- 2026-05-20T00:00:00.000Z
Re: Is it time to take the middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?
The ongoing discussion centers on moving certain middle-end string and array operation warnings from the -Wall flag to -Wextra in GCC. The rationale is that these warnings, while sometimes useful, generate a high number of false positives, causing more annoyance than help for developers. Moving them to -Wextra would keep them available for those who want them, while reducing noise for the average user. The suggestion is seen as a reasonable intermediate step.