Re: dfa.c fix for C89 compilers

[Aharon Robbins]

I have testers for SCO Unix using GCC 2.95 (!), as well as VMS and z/OS.
The latter has a vendor supplied C89 compiler but no GCC at all, nor
is it likely to get GCC particularly soon.

I personally don't see having variables at the top of functions as a
big price to pay for continued portability to a much broader range
of systems (esp if dfa is supposed to move to Gnulib where C89 is
still supported, or do I misunderstand?). There are people who really
cannot use anything but the vendor-supplied compiler on whatever
legacy systems they're running, and there are lots of legacy systems
in production use out there.

The 2-line rearrangement of includes, if it doesn't affect grep, would
be a nice favor to me also.  But on both counts it's the decision of
the grep maintainers, as it's their code.  (I maintained a private copy
of dfa for 8 years; I can continue to do so if need be.)

As to gawk moving to git + gnulib, I sincerely appreciate the offers
of help.  I am reading up on both. I have promised Jim to be open-minded
about both and will make a decision once I have enough information and
understanding to do.

Thanks,

Arnold