From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from cvs.linux-mips.org (eddie.linux-mips.org [148.251.95.138]) by sourceware.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CDE8C3857C40; Sun, 12 Jul 2020 02:08:22 +0000 (GMT) DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.3.2 sourceware.org CDE8C3857C40 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=linux-mips.org Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; spf=none smtp.mailfrom=macro@linux-mips.org Received: (from localhost user: 'macro', uid#1010) by eddie.linux-mips.org with ESMTP id S23990923AbgGLCIUKT0fd (ORCPT + 1 other); Sun, 12 Jul 2020 04:08:20 +0200 Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 03:08:20 +0100 (BST) Sender: "Maciej W. Rozycki" From: "Maciej W. Rozycki" To: Rainer Orth cc: binutils@sourceware.org, gdb@sourceware.org Subject: Re: Support for alpha-osf, mips-irix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Spam-Status: No, score=-5.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, KAM_DMARC_STATUS, KAM_LAZY_DOMAIN_SECURITY, KHOP_HELO_FCRDNS, SPF_HELO_NONE, SPF_NONE, TXREP, UNPARSEABLE_RELAY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on server2.sourceware.org X-BeenThere: gdb@sourceware.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Gdb mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 02:08:24 -0000 On Thu, 9 Jul 2020, Rainer Orth wrote: > Every once in a while I come across references to Tru64 UNIX > (alpha*-dec-osf*) and SGI IRIX in the binutils-gdb tree. This seems > strange given that the last versions supported by GCC (Tru64 UNIX V5.1 > and IRIX 6.5) were obsoleted in GCC 4.7 back in 2012 and removed in GCC > 4.8. GDB took a bit longer, but GDB 7.9 removed support for both as > well in 2015, although a few references have been overlooked. > > Both platforms are long obsolete and I strongly suspect there's no one > to benefit from continued support (whatever that means) in binutils alone. > > Any objections to removing support completely? I'm not yet certain how > either or both is entangled with code for other targets still supported > (alpha-linux, mips-linux). Technically we could delete the IRIX configuration triplets, but that does not buy us much as they use ELF (a peculiar variation of, e.g. the sort order of the symbol table is different from generic ELF), so painful extraction of dead pieces of ELF support code would be required, and then parts of IRIX 5 ELF format support, which the IRIX 6 ELF format has some further differences from, are used by some embedded MIPS targets, so parts of that code would have to stay. Not worth the effort IMO. Then IRIX test results look so-so mostly due to the ELF peculiarity causing output not to match regexps, but overall there's nothing wrong there AFAIK, just the missing manpower to clean the tests up (I did some of that work back when MIPS target maintenance was a part of my dayjob). Similar failures happen for the affected embedded targets, although they're limited to tests that do not require shared library support. > There's even more prehistoric cruft, btw., e.g. references to > mips-ultrix ;-) That (ECOFF) has been deleted AFAIK, except for minimal BFD support to keep `objcopy' to/from ELF working, to satisfy the requirement of some bootloaders fixed in the firmware. Of course the removal of the remaining pieces made code verification a tad problematic (perhaps we could have a binutils/ test that runs `objcopy' both ways and checks basic consistency though). Maciej