Re: incompatible pointer types with newer zlib

On tor, 2012-02-23 at 10:17 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> > Fixing most of this is not difficult, see attached patch. The only
> > ugliness is in pg_backup_archiver.h
>
> > FILE *FH; /* General purpose file handle */
>
> > which is used throughout pg_dump as sometimes a real FILE* and sometimes
> > a gzFile handle. There are also some fileno() calls on this, so just
> > replacing this with an #ifdef isn't going to work. This might need some
> > more restructuring to make the code truly type-safe. My quick patch
> > replaces the type with void*, thus sort of restoring the original
> > situation that allowed this to work.
>
> void * seems entirely reasonable given the two different usages, but
> I would be happier if the patch added explicit casts whereever FH is
> set to or used as one of these two types.

That would add about 70 casts all over the place. I don't think that
will make things clearer or more robust. I think we either leave it as
my first patch for now or find a more robust solution with a union or
something.