From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 20:10:49 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 20:10:40 -0500 Received: from neon-gw.transmeta.com ([209.10.217.66]:14093 "EHLO neon-gw.transmeta.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 20:10:27 -0500 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: Where is it written? Date: 10 Nov 2000 17:10:00 -0800 Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara CA Message-ID: <8ui698$c2q$1@cesium.transmeta.com> In-Reply-To: <20001110184031.A2704@munchkin.spectacle-pond.org> <200011110011.eAB0BbF244111@saturn.cs.uml.edu> <20001110192751.A2766@munchkin.spectacle-pond.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Disclaimer: Not speaking for Transmeta in any way, shape, or form. Copyright: Copyright 2000 H. Peter Anvin - All Rights Reserved Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Followup to: <20001110192751.A2766@munchkin.spectacle-pond.org> By author: Michael Meissner In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel > > Generally with ABIs you don't want to mess with it (otherwise you can't be > guaranteed that a library built by somebody else will be compatible with your > code, without all sorts of bits in the e_flags field). It allows multiple > compilers to be provided that all interoperate (as long as they follow the same > spec). > > Don't get me wrong -- in my 25 years of compiler hacking, I've never seen an > ABI that I was completely happy with, including ABI's that I designed myself. > ABIs by their nature are a compromise. That particular ABI was short sighted > in that it wants only 32-bit alignment for doubles, instead of 64-bit alignment > for instance, and also doesn't align the stack to higher alignment boundaries. > We can mess with the ABI, but it requires a wholescale rev of the entire system. We have had such revs before -- each major rev of libc is one -- but they are incredibly painful. However, if we find ourselves in a situation where there are enough reasons to introduce libc.so.7 then perhaps looking at some revs to the ABI might be in order -- passing arguments in registers and aligning the stack to 64 bits probably would be the main items. -hpa -- at work, in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/