Subject: gcc for Irix.

From: Miguel de Icaza <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 09:55:22 -0500

Hello guys,

   I am running into a little problem.  The binary gcc that is
available on the free software collection is for Irix 5.3 and the
include files that are packaged with it are not quite ok for Irix 6.2

   I do not have a native cc, so this is kind of problematic :-)

Miguel.

---

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 09:54:57 -0700

Miguel de Icaza writes:
...
 > include files that are packaged with it are not quite ok for Irix 6.2
...

      In what way do the 5.3 include files cause problems?

---

From: [email-masked] (Ariel Faigon)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 10:50:28 -0700 (PDT)

:
:Miguel de Icaza writes:
:...
: >    I am running into a little problem.  The binary gcc that is
: > available on the free software collection is for Irix 5.3 and the
: > include files that are packaged with it are not quite ok for Irix 6.2
:...
:
:      In what way do the 5.3 include files cause problems?
:

[Note: I'm taking care of Miguel in private email]

The headers that come with gcc are:

	1) Only a very small subset of the full set of headers
	   which were preprocessed by gcc 'fix_header' utility.

	2) Correspond to the OS version on which gcc was built
	   which may be incompatible in subtle ways with the
	   runtime libraries on a later OS version.

Since Miguel's Indy is (apparently) a 6.2 IRIX, possibly
without all the necessary header patches, and the gcc he
is trying was built on 5.3, I can see why he has header
problems.

Anyway, don't worry. This is being taken care of.
-- 
Peace, Ariel

---

From: "William J. Earl" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 13:37:35 -0700

> is trying was built on 5.3, I can see why he has header

       If the old headers do not work on the new system, that is a
bug, not a feature.  There had better not be any subtle
incompatibilities.  (New headers will not work on an old system, but
that is a different problem.)

---

From: "Christopher W. Carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 08:39:28 -0700

On Jun 13,  1:37pm, William J. Earl wrote:
>-- End of excerpt from William J. Earl

Actually, it isn't a bug because there was a major version change.
Anything can change between 5.3 and 6.2.  I know we try to maintain
backwards compatibility but sometimes ANSI requires changes in the
number of parameters, there's a change in the values used to pass to
functions, etc.

I believe our promise is that code compiled on 5.3 will run on 6.2,
not that it will still compile.

-- 

		Chris Carlson

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---

From: [email-masked] (Ariel Faigon)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 10:21:07 -0700 (PDT)

:
:Actually, it isn't a bug because there was a major version change.
:Anything can change between 5.3 and 6.2.  I know we try to maintain
:backwards compatibility but sometimes ANSI requires changes in the
:number of parameters, there's a change in the values used to pass to
:functions, etc.
:
:I believe our promise is that code compiled on 5.3 will run on 6.2,
:not that it will still compile.
:
Yes, It was mainly ANSI/POSIX1C/POSIX2/XPG4/UNIX95 (spec 1170) changes
(See /usr/include/standards.h) which caused major changes in IRIX
headers in order to be able to support all these standards without
conflicts (a pretty big undertaking).

In addition there were some enhancemnets to certain APIs, for example
supporting faster serial speeds which changed some termios.h subtle
interfaces (you may still compile with -D_OLD_TERMIOS of course, but
still a change that may break compilations on old and arguably not
cleanly written UNIX apps -- GNU less comes to mind) 

And finally there's "fix_headers" - the utility that comes with gcc
and fixes headers so they can be used with some gcc conventions
and extensions to C.  Combine this with our multi-standard headers
which I suspect the designers of "fix_headers" never thought of
and you get a pretty cool mess :-)

-- 
Peace, Ariel

---

From: "David S. Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 13:35:26 -0400

From: [email-masked] (Ariel Faigon)
   Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 10:21:07 -0700 (PDT)

   And finally there's "fix_headers" - the utility that comes with gcc
   and fixes headers so they can be used with some gcc conventions and
   extensions to C.  Combine this with our multi-standard headers
   which I suspect the designers of "fix_headers" never thought of and
   you get a pretty cool mess :-)

Which is why in gcc-2.8.0 a completely new fix_headers.irix will exist
which handles it all properly...

---

From: Martin Knoblauch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 09:30:23 +0200

>    I do not have a native cc, so this is kind of problematic :-)
Miguel,

 if you took the stuff from Ariels home page, don't worry
about the "5.3" stuff. It is basically the only way to build
an "official" gcc for 6.x. Otherwise, the stuff is binary
compatible. As for the header files, what is the problem?
Errors, or incompleteness?

Martin
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---

From: Martin Knoblauch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:02:45 +0200

David S. Miller wrote:
> Which is why in gcc-2.8.0 a completely new fix_headers.irix will
> exist which handles it all properly...

 This is why we all eagerly wait to see an official release of 2.8 :-)

Martin

---

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:42:06 +0200 (MET DST)

>  This is why we all eagerly wait to see an official release of 2.8 :-)

Let things settle down a bit.  I tried to install a snapshot some days
ago and had problems to bootstrap the compiler.  The thin is still
pretty buggy.

  Ralf