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Re: [PATCH] Fix distinction of 32/64bit addresses in MIPS gas
- To: cgd at broadcom dot com
- Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fix distinction of 32/64bit addresses in MIPS gas
- From: "H . J . Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>
- Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:09:03 -0700
- Cc: mrg at cygnus dot com, binutils at sources dot redhat dot com,thorpej at wasabisystems dot com, simonb at wasabisystems dot com
- References: <20010831190655.B8746@lucon.org> <16878.999310218@cygnus.com> <mailpost.999310274.17560@postal.sibyte.com> <yov5zo8ba38l.fsf@highland.sibyte.com> <20010906110030.A32621@lucon.org> <yov5lmjsdv14.fsf@highland.sibyte.com>
On Thu, Sep 06, 2001 at 11:38:31AM -0700, cgd@broadcom.com wrote:
> Yes, something might be a bug w.r.t. an ABI standard that nobody
> started following until 6 months ago. But e.g. some of the changes to
That is why I said the mips ELF implementation in binutils was only
really tested on Linux/mips :-).
> binutils will cause binary compatibility for NetBSD/mips binaries,
> which have been using the old MIPS ELF ABI implemented by binutils for
> ... 3+ years.
>
> I don't disagree that bugs need to be fixed, but some of the fixes
> will cause some groups real pain.
>
Been there, done that. It happened quite a few times on some Linux
platforms. Sorry, I can't help on that.
> > The only mips testsuite results for gcc I can find are Irix and Linux.
> > It won't surprise me that the next release of gcc/binutils won't work
> > on NetBSD/mips, out of box.
>
> GCC isn't relevant here, is it? I mean, binutils is supposed to be a
> usable compiler with gcc, without gcc, and also with random
> (not-current) versions of gcc. NetBSD is ... much less likely to
> upgrade to a new version of gcc than to a new version of binutils.
It depends on how you see it. In my view, a toolchain should at least
include binutils and gcc. They should be compatible with each other.
> The point of my message was mostly informational: i think the list
> should be aware that there are issues re: MIPS ABIs, current binutils,
> and compatibility with a system that's been using binutils to generate
> dynamically-linked MIPS ELF binaries for years.
>
Well, it is not an excuse not to have a good implementation of the SVR4
MIPS ABI.
BTW, "make check" in binutils checks the SVR4 ELF ABI implementation on
Linux/mips. Linux/mips also has its own testsuite for the SVR4 ELF ABI
implementation in glibc. Does NetBSD/mips have similar tests?
H.J.