Brandon Williams [off-list ref] writes:
One simple idea would be to convert the single 'flag' into various bit
fields themselves, that way if you need to add a new flag you would just
make a new bit field. I'm unaware of any downsides of doing so (though
i may be missing something) but doing so would probably cause a bit of
code churn.
The reason why people want to have their own bit in the flags word
is because they want to use DIFF_OPT_{SET,CLR,TST,TOUCHED} but they
do not want to do the work to extend them beyond a single word.
I think it is doable by making everything a 1-bit wide bitfield
without affecting existing users.