Re: BFD_ASSEMBLER, bignum questions

[Ian Lance Taylor <ian at wasabisystems dot com>]

Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com> writes:

> >>* Are there any non-BFD configurations still in use? It looks like
> >>configure can generate some, but they mostly seem really obscure,
> >>maybe they're no longer in use.
> >>
> >
> >Do you mean non-BFD, or non-BFD_ASSEMBLER?
> >
> And here I thought they were the same thing...

No, no.  Just consider Steve Chamberlain and much will become clear.
Or, rather, you will gain not actual clarity, but greater insight into
why things are the way they are.

> Hmm, they mostly seem ancient. Has there been any program of
> obsoleting unused configs, or do people actually test that all
> of these still work?

There is no systematic mechanism for deleting old configurations.  I
doubt that anybody tests most of them.  The non-BFD non-BFD_ASSEMBLER
config most likely to receive some testing is probably m68k-aout, for
old m68k Unix systems.

There are non-BFD_ASSEMBLER configs which may still be used, such as
sh-coff.

> Non-BFD would seem hard to make work as a
> cross for instance.

No, it works fine, or at least it worked fine at one time.  Look at
the parts of obj-aout.c which are used when BFD_ASSEMBLER is not
defined.

Ian