Re: Is it time to take the middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?

Project / Subsystem

gcc / gcc

Date

2026-05-26

Proposer

Eric Gallager <egall@gwmail.gwu.edu>

Source type

public_inbox

Consensus

Proposed

Sentiment

/10

Technical tradeoffs

  • Moving warnings to `-Wextra` reduces the number of warnings seen by default, potentially hiding real issues from developers who only use `-Wall`.
  • Creating a new `-Wmiddle-end` group gives developers more control over which warnings are enabled, but requires them to learn about and manage another warning group.

All attributes

project
gcc
subsystem
gcc
patch_id
discussion_id
CAMfHzOvU2soBeBYpUmh1N-su6dcv1xoPA7A55=om0HczhJQHHQ@mail.gmail.com
source_type
public_inbox
title
Re: Is it time to take the middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?
headline
Take middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?
tldr
Move middle-end stringop/array warnings out of `-Wall` and into `-Wextra`, adding a new `-Wmiddle-end` diagnostic group for finer control.
proposer
Eric Gallager <egall@gwmail.gwu.edu>
consensus
Proposed
outcome
proposed
sentiment_score
technical_tradeoffs
  • Moving warnings to `-Wextra` reduces the number of warnings seen by default, potentially hiding real issues from developers who only use `-Wall`.
  • Creating a new `-Wmiddle-end` group gives developers more control over which warnings are enabled, but requires them to learn about and manage another warning group.
series_id
series_role
reply
series_parts
[]
tags
  • warnings
  • gcc
  • middle-end
  • stringop
  • array
bugzilla_url
date
2026-05-26T00:00:00.000Z

Re: Is it time to take the middle-end stringop/array warnings out of -Wall?

Eric Gallager agrees with a proposal to move middle-end stringop/array warnings from -Wall to -Wextra. The proposal includes creating a new diagnostic group, -Wmiddle-end, for these warnings. Gallager suggests waiting a release cycle before removing them from -Wextra to allow users to adjust.