binutils for mac os x

binutils for mac os x

[nico]

Hi,

is it possible to compile binutils for mac os x?
I tried it, but I'm failed:

./confgure --prefix=/gnutools/
make
make install

I tried the same again on a debian-athlon-system and it works fine.
The first bad thing on my Mac was this message:

--cut
*** This configuration is not supported in the following subdirectories:
      bfd binutils ld gas opcodes gprof
--cut

In the targetdirectory I only found:

drwxr-xr-x   4 root  admin   136 24 Feb 16:31 info
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  admin   102 24 Feb 16:31 lib

nothing more :(

What did I wrong? Is there something I have to do before installing 
binutils?

Thank You
Nico

Re: binutils for mac os x

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Nico,

> What did I wrong? Is there something I have to do before installing 
> binutils?

  Persuade Apple to donate the rest of their port of the binutils to OS X...

Cheers
   Nick

Re: binutils for mac os x

[nico]

On Feb 24, 2005, at 5:27 PM, Nick Clifton wrote:

> Hi Nico,
>
>> What did I wrong? Is there something I have to do before installing 
>> binutils?
>
>  Persuade Apple to donate the rest of their port of the binutils to OS 
> X...

What do you mean? Do there have to be installed binutils to build new 
binutils?
Is it impossible to install binutils on the Mac at the moment?

ciao
nico

RE: binutils for mac os x

[Dave Korn]

----Original Message----
>From: binutils-owner On Behalf Of nico 
>Sent: 25 February 2005 13:48 

> On Feb 24, 2005, at 5:27 PM, Nick Clifton wrote:
> 
>> Hi Nico,
>> 
>>> What did I wrong? Is there something I have to do before installing
>>> binutils?
>> 
>>  Persuade Apple to donate the rest of their port of the binutils to OS
>> X...
> 
> What do you mean? Do there have to be installed binutils to build new
> binutils?


  Well, it's very hard to assemble the source code of the new binutils if
you don't have an assembler......  :)


    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

Re: binutils for mac os x

[nico]

On Feb 25, 2005, at 4:33 PM, Dave Korn wrote:

>   Well, it's very hard to assemble the source code of the new binutils 
> if
> you don't have an assembler......  :)

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean, but this:

scalesia:/gnutools moser$ man as

------
NAME
        as - Mac OS X Mach-O GNU-based assemblers
[...]
------

looks like an assembler.

Nico

RE: binutils for mac os x

[Dave Korn]

----Original Message----
>From: nico [mailto:moser@cs.tu-berlin.de]
>Sent: 28 February 2005 09:04

> On Feb 25, 2005, at 4:33 PM, Dave Korn wrote:
> 
>>   Well, it's very hard to assemble the source code of the new binutils if
>> you don't have an assembler......  :)
> 
> Perhaps I don't understand what you mean, but this:
> 
> scalesia:/gnutools moser$ man as
> 
> ------
> NAME
>         as - Mac OS X Mach-O GNU-based assemblers
> [...]
> ------
> 
> looks like an assembler.
> 
> Nico

  Ah, so you *do* have installed binutils!  I thought you said you didn't!

  Binutils works for many targets, but only Apple's own specialised version
works properly for mac os x.  So the assembler you have on your system is
binutils (of a sort), but you won't be able to recompile it or update it
from the GNU binutils until Apple have contributed the changes they made to
their version of it into the public source codes, because until they do the
public versions won't support mac os x.  Any clearer?


    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

Re: binutils for mac os x

[nico]

On Feb 28, 2005, at 11:26 AM, Dave Korn wrote:

>   Ah, so you *do* have installed binutils!

Not explicitly. I installed the developer tools from apple. It seems 
that there is an assembler inside ;-)

> I thought you said you didn't!

I hope not.

>   Binutils works for many targets, but only Apple's own specialised 
> version
> works properly for mac os x.  So the assembler you have on your system 
> is
> binutils (of a sort), but you won't be able to recompile it or update 
> it
> from the GNU binutils until Apple have contributed the changes they 
> made to
> their version of it into the public source codes, because until they 
> do the
> public versions won't support mac os x.  Any clearer?

I think so. Thanks a lot.

Nico

Re: binutils for mac os x

[Stan Shebs]

nico wrote:

>
> is it possible to compile binutils for mac os x?
>
Not at the moment. Apple's equivalent of binutils, called "cctools",
is a totally independent implementation, except for the assembler,
which was forked from gas 1.38 (a pre BFD version). So there hasn't
been much motivation to port binutils.

The reading side of BFD has been ported, for the benefit of GDB,
which explains the "bfd/mach-o.c" etc that you see in the sources.

Patches for Mach-O gas were posted to this list some time ago, but
I think they've been overlooked. Doing Mach-O in the linker and
such would be pretty complicated; the file format sometimes resembles
ELF, but is different enough that wouldn't be much to share, and so
there'd be a lot of coding involved.

Stan

RE: binutils for mac os x

[Dave Korn]

----Original Message----
From: Jonathan Wilson 
Sent: 28 February 2005 10:31
To: Dave Korn

[  Jonathan, you left the list out of the Cc line; I'm assuming that this
wasn't deliberate because it's not exactly a personal reply, so I've added
it back in.  ]

>>   Binutils works for many targets, but only Apple's own specialised
>> version works properly for mac os x.  So the assembler you have on your
>> system is binutils (of a sort), but you won't be able to recompile it or
>> update it from the GNU binutils until Apple have contributed the changes
>> they made to their version of it into the public source codes, because
>> until they do the public versions won't support mac os x.  Any clearer?
> GNU AS is under the GNU GPL so anyone can come along and take whatever
> changes Apple made to GNU AS and use them (I doubt that Apple of all
> companies would be distributing builds of GNU AS and not complying with
> the GPL)

  Absolutely so, and nobody is suggesting otherwise.  Apple have always made
their sources available, but they are a large and unwieldy organisation, and
it sometimes takes a little while before they can make the arrangements to
get source code contributed back to the GNU projects; but they have always
been completely happy to distribute their sources directly to the public in
the meantime.  They helped a lot in the early days of altivec support for
gcc, for example, by distributing patchsets that they had been working with
internally, that had more advanced support than anything available in the
FSF's repository.


    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....