Created attachment 36438 [details] [review]
libxml2-printf.patch

I'm pretty sure that as-is the patch:
  - break the source parsing of doc/apibuild.py needed to
    build the API XML description and generate python bindings,
    elfgcchack.h, documentation files, etc...
    see "make rebuild" in the doc subdir
  - break compilation on Windows since 
    include/libxml/xmlwin32version.h.in has no definition for the new macro
I'm also wondering about compiling with old gcc versions. When was
__attribute__((__format__(__printf__,fmt,args))) support added to gcc
and can this be added to the test ?

I'm not too fond of the modifications done on the header files themselves
adding the extra info to the C code, okay, but to the header it doesn't look
clean to me.

  I don't think I can apply that patch right now or as-is, there is too much 
portability troubles/uncertainites with it.

Daniel

Don't misunderstand my comment though, I think doing the checking when
possible is a great idea, but as-is I can't apply the patch,

Daniel

the format string attribute was introduced with gcc 3.3 (on 2003-06-29) 
 
The define is already enclosed by ifdef __GNUC__, so perhaps 
just add: 
 
#if     __GNUC__ > 3 || (__GNUC__ == 3 && __GNUC_MINOR__ > 2) 
 
I cannot really speak wwhat the docu extractor and gccaliashack.h scripts/hack 
will do here. 

While going though 552505 I reexamined this patch and the tweaks needed
for apibuild.py and windows header are similar so I ported the patch
back to SVN head,

  this is now all commited,

    thanks !

Daniel