[m-dev.] GCC back-end and -a / --asm ==> --target asm

Fergus Henderson fjh at cs.mu.OZ.AU
Fri May 11 00:44:02 AEST 2001


Now that I've got the GCC back-end passing all of our test suite,
I'm keen to see it more widely used.

One thing I want to do towards that end is to introduce some more
convenient options, to reduce the typing effort for `--target asm'.
So I suggest we allow `-a' and `--asm' as abbreviations for `--target asm'.
Now, before I go ahead and implement it, are there any comments about
or objections to this proposal?

Another thing I plan to do is to configure most of our test machines here
with --enable-gcc-back-end (currently that is only done for "hg").

I also thought about making --target asm enabled by default,
if the compiler was configured with --enable-gcc-back-end,
at least in circumstances where it is likely to be an improvement,
i.e. grade hlc.gc and no intermodule optimization, but there are various
implementation difficulties with that.  I could make that the default for
`mmc' (and the other utilities: `mgnuc', `ml', and `c2init') for hlc.gc
grade fairly easily, but for Mmake this is a bit harder, since Mmake
needs to know whether we're compiling via asm when generating the
Makefile, but doesn't know which grade to use until after parsing
the generated Makefile.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
                                    |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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