On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:43:29 +0300, Riku Voipio wrote: > On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 10:28:29AM -0700, Daniel Gimpelevich wrote: >> That is precisely why I am suggesting here that -mhard-float be dumped >> altogether in favor of -msoft-float, but have the soft-float >> implementation code be a shared object that can be replaced as needed. > > ..which would break backward compatability with current hardfloat libs > and binaries.
That's only software compatibility, and AFAICT the kernel doesn't care and will happily run both types of binaries. >> > EABI is probably the answer to all those issues... > >> ...except backward compatibility, right? > > well, changing from -mhard-float to -msoft-float breaks backward > compatablity too. Vincent Sanders had similar (but more sophisticated) > transition plan, but turned out to be unimplementable because current > hardfloat ABI, float return values are returned a fpu register. OK, I found his post of 2005-09-29, and the plan seems to be largely a chronological inversion of the idea that I have, with inevitable chicken-and-egg issues in addition to the aforementioned ABI roadblocks. Furthermore, he stated that the purpose of the plan was avoidance of what I see as the real problem: the non-feasibility of dumping all built binaries and starting from scratch. If sections of the archive could be rebuilt with -msoft-float in stages, with binaries of different ABIs that don't link together coexisting for a time, I think the impact of dumping all built binaries could be made more palatable. > Besides, EABI has actually been implemented, while a hardfloat > libfloat is still at a idea stage. Correct, but a softfloat libfloat is also a reality today, and can easily be a shared object. Once all binaries use it, attention can be turned to crafting drop-in hardfloat replacements for it that use the softfloat ABI. The only real question as I see it would be whether such a gradual replacement of all built binaries could be OK when a sudden need to rebuild all of them is not. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
