Re: FYI: Adjust circular dependencies

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Oct 16, 2000, Akim Demaille <address@hidden> wrote:

> Personally, while I confess I have no idea how cross-compilation from
> POSIX to Windows works for instance, it seems to me that all we are
> interested in is build and build only.

Nope.  If we care about one platform only, the one is `host', since
that's where executables we create are going to run.  If the host will
only run files named `.exe', we have to make them such.

The problem is that sometimes the extension is abused into programs
that run on the build machine and, in case of GCC, into programs that
run on the target machine.

> I suppose that if you have a cross-compilation under Linux using a
> win-gcc, this win-gcc will produce .o file, and `foo' executables, not
> `foo.exe'.

On the contrary.  If you're building for MS-Windows, you must generate
executables named .EXE, even if .EXE doesn't make sense for the build
platform.

> Here our only purpose is to have the build completed.  It is up to the
> user, when she move the cross-compiled binary, to adjust the names.

The cross-compiled binary isn't moved.  Sometimes it is just mounted.
It must already be properly named.

> Of course things are definitely easier if the *compiler* uses the
> convention of the host when cross-compiling.

Precisely.

> But that a service the compiler has to give us: we can't do that.

And that's why we test a property of the compiler.  If it's a cross
compiler, it's supposed to follow conventions of the host for which it
compiles.

> So in short, it seems clear to me that we are only concerned with
> build.

It's not that clear to me :-)

Alexandre> This is a horrible can of worms.  I'd rather not have this
Alexandre> change in without complete tool-chain builds of Cygwin
Alexandre> native, GNU/Linux native, GNU/Linux-x-Cygwin and some
Alexandre> canadian cross with Cygwin in the middle.

> I'm not sure I understand your last sentence :( Do you mean `...change
> in without _testing_ complete...' or something?

... without complete (tool-chain) *builds* of ...

-- 
Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer                  address@hidden, redhat.com}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp        address@hidden, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist    *Please* write to mailing lists, not to me