In Solaris 11.1, I updated the system headers to enable use of several attributes on functions, including noreturn and printf format, to give compilers and static analyzers more information about how they are used to give better warnings when building code.

In Solaris 11.2, I've gone back in and added one more attribute to a number of functions in the system headers: __attribute__((__deprecated__)). This is used to warn people building software that they’re using function calls we recommend no longer be used. While in many cases the Solaris Binary Compatibility Guarantee means we won't ever remove these functions from the system libraries, we still want to discourage their use.

I made passes through both the POSIX and C standards, and some of the Solaris architecture review cases to come up with an initial list which the Solaris architecture review committee accepted to start with. This set is by no means a complete list of Obsolete function interfaces, but should be a reasonable start at functions that are well documented as deprecated and seem useful to warn developers away from. More functions may be flagged in the future as they get deprecated, or if further passes are made through our existing deprecated functions to flag more of them.

If the above table is cut off when viewing in the blog, try viewing this standalone copy of the table.

To See or Not To See

To see these warnings, you will need to be building with either gcc (versions 3.4, 4.5, 4.7, & 4.8 are available in the 11.2 package repo), or with Oracle Solaris Studio 12.4 or later (which like Solaris 11.2, is currently in beta testing). For instance, take this oversimplified (and obviously buggy) implementation of the cat command:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    char buf[80];

    while (gets(buf) != NULL)
	puts(buf);
    return 0;
}

% cc -V
cc: Sun C 5.13 SunOS_i386 Beta 2014/03/11
% cc gets_test.c
"gets_test.c", line 6: warning:  "gets" is deprecated, declared in : "/usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h", line 221

The exact warning given varies by compilers, and the compilers also have a variety of flags to either raise the warnings to errors, or silence them. Of couse, the exact form of the output is Not An Interface that can be relied on for automated parsing, just shown for example.

gets(3C) is actually a special case — as noted above, it is no longer part of the C Standard Library in the C11 standard, so when compiling in C11 mode (i.e. when __STDC_VERSION__ >= 201112L), the <stdio.h> header will not provide a prototype for it, causing the compiler to complain it is unknown:

% gcc -std=c11 gets_test.c
gets_test.c: In function ‘main’:
gets_test.c:6:5: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘gets’ [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
     while (gets(buf) != NULL)
     ^

% cc gets_test.c
"gets_test.c", line 6: warning:  "gets" is deprecated, declared in : "/usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h", line 221

% cc -errwarn=E_DEPRECATED_ATT gets_test.c
"gets_test.c", line 6:  "gets" is deprecated, declared in : "/usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h", line 221
cc: acomp failed for gets_test.c

% /usr/sfw/bin/gcc gets_test.c
gets_test.c: In function `main':
gets_test.c:6: warning: `gets' is deprecated (declared at /usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h:221)

% /usr/gcc/4.7/bin/gcc gets_test.c
gets_test.c: In function ‘main’:
gets_test.c:6:5: warning: ‘gets’ is deprecated (declared at /usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h:221) [-Wdeprecated-declarations]

% /usr/gcc/4.7/bin/gcc -Werror=deprecated-declarations gets_test.c
gets_test.c: In function ‘main’:
gets_test.c:6:5: error: ‘gets’ is deprecated (declared at /usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h:221) [-Werror=deprecated-declarations]
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors

% /usr/bin/gcc gets_test.c
gets_test.c: In function ‘main’:
gets_test.c:6:5: warning: ‘gets’ is deprecated (declared at /usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h:221) [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
     while (gets(buf) != NULL)
     ^

% /usr/bin/gcc -Werror=deprecated-declarations gets_test.c
gets_test.c: In function ‘main’:
gets_test.c:6:5: error: ‘gets’ is deprecated (declared at /usr/include/iso/stdio_iso.h:221) [-Werror=deprecated-declarations]
     while (gets(buf) != NULL)
     ^
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors