From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Patrik Hagglund To: law@cygnus.com Cc: egcs@cygnus.com Subject: Re: how to avoid bootstrapping? Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 05:22:00 -0000 Message-id: <199712091321.OAA28819@portofix.ida.liu.se> References: <18566.881602342@hurl.cygnus.com> X-SW-Source: 1997-12/msg00532.html Hi jeff, Your answer only makes me more convinced: To be able to build egcs without bootstrapping is only a matter of Makefile programming. > * The fortran compiler won't build with a non-gcc compiler. > "make bootstrap" will deal with this. > > * It is important that the C++ runtime libraries get built > with the egcs compiler, not the compiler used to build > egcs. Again, "make bootstrap" will deal with this. This only states that the Fortran part and the C++ runtime libraries is dependent on the C(?) compiler. Bootstrapping couldn't be the only mechanism to ensure this dependency. > * "make bootstrap" is also critical because it provides some > indication that the compiler is functional. Yes. The bootstrapping process is used for testing. Usually the bootstrapping is done in two steps to make it possible to compare the output from the compiler built by the native compiler with the output from the compiler built by the new compiler. This makes a total of three stages. A fourth stage seams to be present in egcs, but I haven't figured out why. Personally, I think that the "price/performance" ratio of this test, is to high for ordinary users. Especially when the last test always fails on some platforms (according to the documentation). Also, I guess that only the C compiler is tested; other front-ends (and libraries) remains untested. -- Patrik Hägglund, patha@ida.liu.se