On 29 Sep 2003 at 8:28, Gerrit P. Haase wrote:
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It isn't necessary to have it. My understanding (Frank can correct this if I am wrong) is that the RTS build does not require os-hacks.h, but if it is there, it uses it.
Anyway, the build fails for me with or without this file.
Well, GPC has problems with gcc-3.3.1 - and I suspect that this applies to one extent or the other on many platforms. Compiling GPC for Cygwin based on gcc-3.3.1 has proved impossible for me as well (although I haven't tried too hard - I simply use gcc-3.2.3).
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Also, I am not sure how the Win32 os-hacks.h can be added to the GPC source distro. It is pretty much OS-specific (hence the name), and it will only cause trouble if added to the general distro. Also, if IIRC, you can have a version of os-hacks.h for any platform, and the RTS build will use it.
Well, take a look into gcc-3.3.1/config.
I have hints files there for several operating systems. Why shouldn't it be possible to have something like this in GPC too?
It is possible. But that is an operational matter, for Frank. Historically, os-hacks.h was chosen, and, so far, it has only ever been necessary to use that facility under Windows.
We have a perl/hints directory in the Perl distribution where for every system which needs some special configuration there is a file which gets included if you are on that specific platform.
I don't think that a general purpose os-hacks.h file for all platforms needs to be not available,
I am not sure that I understand this statement.
but to implement a neat mechanism which pulls in OS specific definitions whenever they are there should be no problem.
That is what os-hacks.h is for - and it is built into the RTS configure scripts to search for this file. Perhaps there are other ways to do this, "neat" or not. But that is a matter for Frank's judgment, I believe.
Best regards, The Chief -------- Prof. Abimbola A. Olowofoyeku (The African Chief) web: http://www.bigfoot.com/~african_chief/