Re: Does anyone care about gcc 3.x support for x86 anymore?

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Thu May 20 2010 - 08:45:09 EST



* H. Peter Anvin <hpa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 05/19/2010 04:10 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> >
> > However, if the problems are just performance/dead
> > code removal, I would just add a big warning if
> > someone tries to compile x86 with it. I don't like
> > very much the idea of having different minimum gcc
> > requirements for each architecture, except if gcc is
> > producing a broken code.
> >
>
> I should clarify the problem. The problems we have seen
> are related to constant propagation, which causes gcc3
> to die when there is an assembly constraint like:
>
> asm("..." : : "i" (foo));
>
> ... since "foo" isn't constant as far as it is
> concerned. We can put in workarounds, but it's real
> effort to keep it alive that probably isn't well spent.
>
> Similarly, lack of constant propagation can cause code
> that should have been compile-time removed to still be
> there, causing link failures.

Put in a deprecation warning first perhaps?

Ingo
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