Re: [PATCH] Fix build issues with mingw toolchain

[Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net>]

On 2024-05-13 16:36, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 13 May 2024 15:21:16 +0100
>> Cc: tromey@adacore.com, ssbssa@yahoo.de, bernd.edlinger@hotmail.de,
>>  gdb-patches@sourceware.org
>> From: Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net>
>>
>> On 2024-05-11 07:20, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>>> From: Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net>
>>
>>> Cygwin and MSYS2 indeed won't run on older Windows, but programs they
>>> create still can, if built with caution and don't use any APIs from
>>> later versions without run-time checking (like we do).
>>>
>>>> It's quite likely that number of people really really using
>>>> current GDB (for anything productive) on older Windows versions is very reduced,
>>>> if not approaching zero.
>>>
>>> Emacs still supports Windows XP (and even older versions), so it is
>>> important for us to be able to run the latest GDB on XP.
>>>
>>
>> OOC, is there a reason GDB versions other than the latest wouldn't work for
>> that?
> 
> Well, the future support for non-stop on Windows is one reason.  Emacs
> on Windows uses several threads, as you may or may not know.

That feature will only work on Windows 10 and above, so newer GDB will
work the same as older GDB on WinXP.

> 
> Newer GCC versions used to compile Emacs are another reason: as DWARF
> info emitted by GCC is enhanced, we need newer versions of GDB to
> support that.

OK, I can see that.

> 
> More generally, as long as GDB doesn't _have_ to drop XP, i.e., as
> long as keeping it doesn't place a too significant burden on GDB
> maintenance, I think we should not deliberately break it.

Agreed.

> 
>> I don't plan on proposing bumping the minimal supported version currently,
>> as I don't recall it blocking anything, but I would like to understand that
>> constraint better, for if/when the time comes.
> 
> I hope I provided at least some rationale for my opinions.  (They are
> not constraints, not unless the entire team agrees that this is our
> official policy.)
> 

Thanks for the clarification.