🚀 go-pugleaf

balaji@nexus.yorku.ca (Balaji) wrote:

> Toon Moene <toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl> writes:

> >Exactly, that was why I was so interested in a port of gcc to the C90 - 
> >because that's *not* trivial (if there's interest, I can explain _why_ 
> >it's not trivial ;-)

> Ok, I'll bite. _Why_ is it non-trivial? Especially, more non-trivial
> than, say, cc?

Recently, someone posted a description on egcs@cygnus.com and the gcc2 
backend mailing list about his port of gcc + binutils to a series of Texas 
Instrument's DSPs.  Because these cpu's don't have byte-addressability, he 
decided to make sizeof(char) == sizeof(short) == sizeof(int) == sizeof(float) 
== 1.

The same trick can't be pulled for a C90, because the underlying operating 
system and system libraries assume sizeof(char) == 1, sizeof(short) == 
sizeof(int) == sizeof(float) == 8.  Besides, a character pointer under UNICOS 
is an interesting ;-) object.

cc'd to gnu.gcc.help for some more opinion ;-)

Note: Opinions on free software are free, as is the software is itself.

-- 
Toon Moene (mailto:toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 346 214290; Fax: +31 346 214286
g77 Support: mailto:fortran@gnu.ai.mit.edu; NWP: http://www.knmi.nl/hirlam