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Date:   Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:43:20 +0200
From:   Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
To:     Paul_Koning@Dell.com
Cc:     binutils@sourceware.org, linux-mips@linux-mips.org, dvdkhlng@gmx.de
Subject: Re: $ta0 .. $ta3 registers in O32 on MIPS
Message-ID: <20110928194319.GA17409@linux-mips.org>
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On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 10:11:40AM -0500, Paul_Koning@Dell.com wrote:

> >I was expecting an error message and I'm wondering, was this intentional?
> 
> I would say so.  I call this a feature.  It makes it easier to write assembly code that assembles without change in both O32 and N32/N64.  Consider a function that has 4 or fewer arguments, but needs a pile of scratch registers.  It can use ta0-ta3 as four scratch registers, which is correct in all the ABIs.

Turns out that later IRIX version also retroactively introduced the
ta registers for O32 and I just never noticed.  So I'm going to change the
Linux kernel headers for consistence and compatibility with everybody else.

  Ralf