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Re: Support of OpenVMS
- From: Nick Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>
- To: Tristan Gingold <gingold at adacore dot com>
- Cc: binutils at sources dot redhat dot com
- Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:12:34 +0000
- Subject: Re: Support of OpenVMS
- References: <98DBB2B9-EF03-4900-8F27-0B899FF1A6DA@adacore.com>
Hi Tristan,
The most challenging point is the build process. The traditional
approach was to have VMS specific scripts (config.com, makefile.vms).
> This is very easy to use for the build but it's VMS specific of course.
Most of these scripts are still here but the gas/ one which have been
removed in 2005. Not a big deal.
These scripts can only handle vax and alpha. Adding ia64 should be
doable but I can't test vax. Also these scripts use gcc.
The other approach is to use the standard mechanism: configure, as there
is a port of a few GNU tools on VMS. However the standard configure
> doesn't work as is and we have to use the VMS one or we have to modify
autoconf. As the port has been done by DEC/HP, it is based on DEC-C.
As a drawback, executing configure or any long shell script is very slow
> on VMS.
I don't know which approach is the better one from binutils maintainer
point of view, so I'd like to have your opinion first.
The important point from a GNU point of view is that it should be possible to
build the binutils with as little reliance on proprietary tools as can be
achieved. Since it sounds like both methods have VMS dependencies, I would say
go with the simpler method - ie the VMS specific build scripts.
Cheers
Nick