Re: emulation on i386-coff, i386-elf patches

[Ian Lance Taylor <ian@cygnus.com>]

   Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 22:19:36 -0600 (CST)
   From: Robert Lipe <robertl@dgii.com>

   > In fact, I'm not certain that the BFD_ASSEMBLER version of the i386
   > COFF assembler works correctly.  You need to make sure that if you
   > configure with --target i386-coff --enable-bfd-assembler the resulting
   > code works.

   Building that stand-alone results in it being unable to resolve:
	   obj_read_begin_hook                 read.o
	   obj_symbol_new_hook                 symbols.o

   I didn't pursue that aspect further.

You can probably define both to be empty macros in tc-i386.h.

   Since you and Ken both sound doubtful of BFD_ASSEMBLER on i386 COFF, 
   could you offer hints on suspected problem areas?   Sounds like I 
   should take the time to get a 'make check' working.

Since you have access to an i386 COFF native system, the best check is
to run `make CC=gcc bootstrap' in the gas build directory.  That will
do a three stage of gas with itself.

The problem areas will be md_apply_fix and tc_gen_reloc.  You will
need to tweak them in apparently senseless fashion until they do the
right thing (you should be able to figure out what the right thing is
by looking at the object code generated by the non-BFD version).
Unfortunately, gas reloc handling is broken, and fixing it is hard.

Ian