[m-rev.] diff: FreeBSD compatibility.

[Julien Fischer]

Hi,

On Wed, 8 May 2013, Paul Bone wrote:

> FreeBSD compatibility.
>
> configure.ac:
>    Remove the -P argument from a call to m4 as it's not supported
>    everywhere.  We don't rely on -P in any case.
>
> README.FreeBSD:
>    Include more up-to-date information about Mercury on FreeBSD.

...

> +Mercury on FreeBSD
> +==================
> +
> +GCC 4.2.1 Compatibility
> +-----------------------
> +
> +Depending on your grade configuration Mercury may work out-of-the-box on
> +FreeBSD 9.1.  However if you use a decldebug grade it is possible to hang

Is the only problem here that the decldebug grades don't work with GCC
4.2.1?  If so, you should just say the following:

     The default version of GCC (version 4.2.1) miscompiles code
     generated by Mercury's decldebug grade.  This causes programs using
     that grade to sometimes hang.  Installing GCC 4.4.7 ... etc etc


> +the default version of GCC (GCC 4.2.1)  Installing GCC 4.4.7 from ports and
> +directing Mercury to use gcc44 as follows can fix the problem:
> +
> +    CC=gcc44 ./configure <your normal configure arguments>
> +
> +
> +Shared library support
> +----------------------
>
> For FreeBSD, the Boehm conservative garbage collector does not yet support
> shared libraries.  So Mercury does not yet support shared libraries on FreeBSD,
> except in the (not very useful) case where you compile with GC disabled,
> e.g. using the option `--gc none'.

The stuff about the Boehm collector not supporting shared libraries on
FreeBSD is now out-of-date.  (According to Boehm's README it does.)

I suggest replacing this with a paragraph saying that shared libraries
are not currently supported on FreeBDSD as they haven't been tested.
(That said, we seem to have support for them in the configure script.)

Cheers,
Julien.