Can we debate in this mailing list? thanks
On 7/9/23 22:04, Paul Koning wrote:
Because implementing an ABI, or dealing with an incompatibnle change, is hard
work.
you could just use one ABI..(that's what you have)..you can use other
, only at a cost of specifying an ABI version
the abi is text though..so you only have to write a text file
Also, ABI stability means that old binaries work
when you mean binaries, do you mean ELF files? executable files?
. So ABI stability isn't so much a requirement for the compiler as it is a
requirement for any sane operating system.
what does a calling convention, has to do with syscalls?! and syscalls,
and calling conventions, have to do with size and layouts?
used wikipedia definition
..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface
how can the OS, have a binary interface?!!
for example:
prtinf("abc"),
asm (say mov $123,%eax)
binary instruction is 010110101 (for example)...how can the operating
system know what interface to use?!
say i have 101010110101 1010101010101 , how does the O.S works on
binary files?! say how is the syscall used (at binary level)..it had to
be compiled / assembled
int main() {
write(123,_ptr,,count);
}
say write syscall is "101010101001" in binary ,so how does the O.S
interfaces this ? does the O.S. separate binary numbers?!?
unless you meant ELF as "binary program"
An OS that changes ABI without an extremely good reason is an OS that
doesn't care about compatibility, which means it doesn't care about its
customers.
The MIPS examples I pointed to are a good illustration of this. The original
("O32") ABI is for MIPS with 32 bit registers and 32 bit addressing. N32 and
N64 were introduced by SGI to support 64 bit registers, and (for N64) 64 bit pointers.
That's a very compelling benefit. 64 bbit addressing is obvious, and the performance
benefit from using 64 bit registers on machines that have them is very large. So there,
the quite large cost of doing this was totally justified.
The benefit would be for the user...code like it wants (for example,
return value in %ecx)..which is the ultimate reason to use compilers
and also, the benefit would be to use every ABI possible (choosing the best)
paul
On Jul 9, 2023, at 4:55 PM, André Albergaria Coelho via Gcc
wrote:
If we can select the ABi for our program (using gcc), why is there a need for
ABI stability?!
why not put it on a define
#define abi v3
int main() {
}
Each user would just have to compile the code, to follow the abi...no need to
worry changing it
thanks
andre
andre
