Re: Unreviewed patches

[Rainer Orth <ro@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>]

Richard Henderson writes:
> On Mon, Apr 02, 2001 at 10:40:02PM +0200, Rainer Orth wrote:
> > [Tru64 UNIX V5.1] Use old assembler to allow bootstrapping
> > 
> > 	http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2001-02/msg01448.html
> 
> This probably isn't the best of ideas, using the old assembler.

True, especially since the -oldas option is (deliberately?) undocumented
and Compaq would like to get rid of the old assembler in the relatively
near future.  On the other hand, there's currently no viable alternative.

> I understand that one of my co-workers discovered that the
> assembler was, for some reason, running the output through ld.
> Try adding "-c" instead and see if that works for you.

This is not what I've found: I've managed to reduce the problem with the
new assembler (adu) to the following minimal testcase:

http://groups.google.com/groups?th=42335b97ee51a80e&rnum=4&seld=918991391&ic=1

I've learned from Compaq engineers that this is due to an optimization in
adu: it doesn't emit empty sections at all, thus loosing the $Ltext0 label
mips-tfile relied on.  Compaq has agreed that this optimization isn't
important and provided me with a fixed version of adu which doesn't do
this.  I'm currently testing it with considerable success, but there are
still problems to figure out before it's ready for prime time.  Besides, I
may not redistribute it, so there's the need for a workaround until this
assembler is a completely functional replacement for as -oldas and becomes
publicly available, which may take a while, give the usual speed of vendors
to integrate patches into their public patch kits.  So I suggest to
integrate the patch for now as is, to allow others to bootstrap on Tru64
5.1 from the CVS sources.  Once the remaining issues are dealt with and the
new adu becomes generally available, I will happily provide another patch
to get rid of the current hack and documentation how to obtain the fixed
assembler.

> > [Tru64 UNIX V5.1] gcc testsuite fixes
> > 
> > 	http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2001-02/msg01715.html
> 
> Applied.

Thanks.

	Rainer

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainer Orth, Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld University

Email: ro@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE