arm big endian broken?

arm big endian broken?

[Josh Fryman]

hi,

i'm trying to build a cross-hosting toolchain for armv5b (big endian
arm v5) on an i686 host.  it appears that binutils is broken in some
manner such that "ld" won't link together big-endian objects.  this
shows up for the first time in build glibc.  

if i re-run the command from gcc with -mbig-endian, it works fine.
it seems like the binutils are built for arm little-endian, not big-
endian.  this is a bug as far as i can see.

anyone have suggestions or advice?

thanks,

josh

------

the configuration commands used, and the error generated by glibc,
are as follows:

../binutils-2.13.90.0.18-src/configure --target=armv5b-linux --program-prefix=xscalebe- --prefix=/usr/local/xscalebe/ --with-cpu=xscale  --nfp

../gcc-3.2.2-src/configure --target=armv5b-linux --prefix=/usr/local/xscalebe/ i686-pc-linux-gnu --with-headers=/usr/local/xscale/src/linux-adi-brh//include --disable-shared --disable-threads --enable-languages=c --nfp --with-cpu=xscale  --without-fp --with-softfloat-support=internal --program-prefix=xscalebe-

CC=xscalebe-gcc ../glibc-2.3.2-src/configure --host=armv5b-linux --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu --with-headers=/usr/local/xscale/src/linux-adi-brh//include --enable-add-ons --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local/xscalebe/ --with-cpu=xscale --without-fp --enable-kernel=2.4.19 --program-prefix=xscalebe-

[... glibc-building ]

xscalebe-gcc -nostdlib -nostartfiles -r -o /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/crt1.o /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/start.o /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/abi-note.o /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/init.o
/usr/local/xscalebe/bin/../lib/gcc-lib/armv5b-linux/3.2.2/../../../../armv5b-linux/bin/ld: /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/start.o: compiled for a big endian system and target is little endian
File in wrong format: failed to merge target specific data of file /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/start.o
/usr/local/xscalebe/bin/../lib/gcc-lib/armv5b-linux/3.2.2/../../../../armv5b-linux/bin/ld: /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/abi-note.o: compiled for a big endian system and target is little endian
File in wrong format: failed to merge target specific data of file /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/abi-note.o
/usr/local/xscalebe/bin/../lib/gcc-lib/armv5b-linux/3.2.2/../../../../armv5b-linux/bin/ld: /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/init.o: compiled for a big endian system and target is little endian
File in wrong format: failed to merge target specific data of file /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/init.o
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [/usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu/crt1.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-src/csu'
make[1]: *** [csu/subdir_lib] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-src'
make: *** [all] Error 2

cd /usr/local/xscale/toolchain/build/glibc-2.3.2-build/csu 

file *.o

abi-note.o:   ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
check_fds.o:  ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
dso_handle.o: ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
elf-init.o:   ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
errno-loc.o:  ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
errno.o:      ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
gmon-start.o: ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
init-first.o: ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
init.o:       ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
libc-start.o: ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
libc-tls.o:   ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
start.o:      ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
sysdep.o:     ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped
version.o:    ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, ARM, version 1 (ARM), not stripped

Re: arm big endian broken?

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Josh,

> i'm trying to build a cross-hosting toolchain for armv5b (big endian
> arm v5) on an i686 host.  it appears that binutils is broken in some
> manner such that "ld" won't link together big-endian objects.  this
> shows up for the first time in build glibc.  
> 
> if i re-run the command from gcc with -mbig-endian, it works fine.
> it seems like the binutils are built for arm little-endian, not big-
> endian.  this is a bug as far as i can see.
> 
> anyone have suggestions or advice?

Well it is true that the binutils tools do not parse a configuration
target of "armv5b" as being a big-endian target, but normally this
should not matter.  Normally gcc will tell the linker to default to a
big-endian output by adding the -EB command line switch.

My guess would be that the specs file created for gcc are not passing
the -EB switch on to the linker.  You could have a look at the file to
confirm this, and assuming that it is missing, add it back in.

The proper fix of course would be to find out why it is not in the
specs file in the first place, but that looks more complicated.  From
a quick scan of the gcc sources I could not find where it actually
works out that "armv5b" is a big endian toolchain in the first place,
so I am not sure how/where the specs file should be modified.

Cheers
        Nick

Re: arm big endian broken?

[Richard Earnshaw]

> Hi Josh,
> 
> > i'm trying to build a cross-hosting toolchain for armv5b (big endian
> > arm v5) on an i686 host.  it appears that binutils is broken in some
> > manner such that "ld" won't link together big-endian objects.  this
> > shows up for the first time in build glibc.  
> > 
> > if i re-run the command from gcc with -mbig-endian, it works fine.
> > it seems like the binutils are built for arm little-endian, not big-
> > endian.  this is a bug as far as i can see.
> > 
> > anyone have suggestions or advice?
> 
> Well it is true that the binutils tools do not parse a configuration
> target of "armv5b" as being a big-endian target, but normally this
> should not matter.  Normally gcc will tell the linker to default to a
> big-endian output by adding the -EB command line switch.
> 
> My guess would be that the specs file created for gcc are not passing
> the -EB switch on to the linker.  You could have a look at the file to
> confirm this, and assuming that it is missing, add it back in.
> 
> The proper fix of course would be to find out why it is not in the
> specs file in the first place, but that looks more complicated.  From
> a quick scan of the gcc sources I could not find where it actually
> works out that "armv5b" is a big endian toolchain in the first place,
> so I am not sure how/where the specs file should be modified.

There are no gcc configurations that default to big-endian on ARM.

R.

Re: arm big endian broken?

[Josh Fryman]

 
> There are no gcc configurations that default to big-endian on ARM.

right.  after posting here and finding a vacuum of information, i posted
to gcc the corresponding Q and you answered it for me there.  i should
have posted a follow-up here.

thanks,

josh