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Re: compiling GSL on digital unix.
- To: Tim Mooney <mooney at dogbert dot cc dot ndsu dot nodak dot edu>
- Subject: Re: compiling GSL on digital unix.
- From: Mark Galassi <rosalia at lanl dot gov>
- Date: 05 Nov 1999 13:30:28 -0700
- Cc: Jon McAuliffe <jonm at amazon dot com>, Brian Gough <bjg at network-theory dot co dot uk>, gsl-discuss at sourceware dot cygnus dot com
- References: <Pine.OSF.4.20.9911051344120.5680-100000@dogbert.cc.ndsu.nodak.edu>
Hi Tim and Jon,
[Jon, tell me: what is amazon.com doing with GSL? I'm fascinated!]
Tim> I don't think there's an equivalent option in 2.7.2.x, so
Tim> code compiled with that version of gcc (including libgsl)
Tim> would not be fully IEEE compliant.
What is the downside to that? Would you recommend that GSL not be
used in such a case?
I think it is a shame to have the code not build because of a bad
option: it looks cheesy. I would prefer to have configure warn you
that the option is not there, and then either go on with a caveat, or
stop in a clean way.
Your note on gcc options for applications that *use* GSL is
interesting:
Tim> On more note. GSL's configure augments CFLAGS for either
Tim> Linux or Digital Unix on the alpha because its configure.in
Tim> authors know that to get fully compliant IEEE code some
Tim> special options are required. Packages that *use* GSL don't
Tim> generally know that, though, and code that uses GSL on the
Tim> alpha should be compiled using the same set of rounding and
Tim> IEEE-related CFLAGS as GSL itself used. This means that for
Tim> packages that use GSL or software you write yourself that
Tim> uses GSL, be sure you compile using the appropriate CFLAGS to
Tim> enable soft-controlled rounding and IEEE compliant code.
I have been working on a "gsl-config" program (like gtk-config and
gnome-config) which would return the options needed to compile and
link with GSL. This is important for various reasons, like the fact
that the libraries are installed into $(prefix)/gsl/libwhatever.a, so
you need a -L$(prefix)/gsl in the link line.
By the way, what's the worst that happens if -mieee is used to build
GSL but not the application that invokes GSL?