Re: IBM z/OS compatibility issues

[Daniel Richard G.]

On Fri, 2019 Dec 13 07:58-05:00, Bruno Haible wrote:
> 
> You're asking good questions. However, I would like to suggest to
> start simple and get the more complex things done afterwards. By
> that, I mean:
> 
>   - Put the xlc-wrap logic into the 'compile' script. We should not
>     have two different compile scripts, one for MSVC and one for z/OS.
>     A single script should do it.

This sounds good. It would imply broadening the scope of the script
beyond just working around the -c -o limitation, but then it was always
a curiosity that that has been the *only* issue this script was intended
to work around (until now).

I'll e-mail the Automake list about this soon.

Also: I see that AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS() actually comes from
Autoconf. Would that be a good place to put e.g. the -D_UNIX95_THREADS
flag needed to get a proper pthreads API? I see that as similar in
spirit to -D__EXTENSIONS__.

>   - Other than that, use documentation. I have added the most important
>     information (from this mail thread) in
>     <https://gitlab.com/ghwiki/gnow-how/-/wikis/Platforms/Configuration>
>     and would like to invite you to create a new wiki page
>     <https://gitlab.com/ghwiki/gnow-how/-/wikis/Platforms/Configuration/zOS>.

I can add some information, but am concerned about discoverability. I
myself was not aware of this wiki until you mentioned it to me, and
I'm already more informed than most people in my org about
GNU-related matters.

> Reason:
>   - There are few people trying to build GNU software for z/OS;
>     therefore communication among you and them should be fairly
>     simple.

True, though the goal should be for the process to be simple/robust
enough that e-mail correspondence isn't needed :)

>   - Autoconf and Automake releases are not frequent these days;
>     therefore you would have to wait a long time until modified macros
>     AC_PROG_CC etc. become universally available.

This is a good point. Perhaps the wiki can serve as a stopgap
measure (it's certainly better than nothing) until these projects
release updates.

>   - What you have written about this environment so far indicates that
>     there are a lot of complexities; therefore it is likely that you
>     will have to tweak your recommendations regarding compiler options
>     and environment variables. (Just like I tweaked the recommended
>     options for building on HP-UX today. And HP-UX is _way_ simpler
>     than z/OS!)

I'll be happy to tweak what's there if I can get feedback from other
users. To date, I've been effectively working alone on this platform...


--Daniel


-- 
Daniel Richard G. || address@hidden
My ASCII-art .sig got a bad case of Times New Roman.