Re: [RFC] preliminary patch to move decimal float runtime to new libs

[Janis Johnson <janis187 at us dot ibm dot com>]

On Thu, 2008-08-14 at 21:11 -0700, H.J. Lu wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8:44 PM, Janis Johnson <janis187@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> > I've made progress on moving decimal float runtime support from libgcc.a
> > to libgcc_dfp.a and building a new shared library, libgcc_dfp.so.1.
> > The patch works sometimes but still has problems and so is not yet ready
> > for a full review, but I'd appreciate comments on the general approach.
> > I'll be out of touch until Tuesday.
> >
> > The new libraries are installed in the same locations as libgcc.a
> > (inst_libdir) and libgcc_s.a (inst_slibdir).  They are only built for
> > targets that support decimal float and when that support is enabled.
> > It doesn't quite work yet, but the the specs will add -lgcc_dfp to
> > the link line, with --as-needed, when decimal float support is enabled.
> >
> > 2008-08-14  Janis Johnson  <janis187@us.ibm.com>
> >
> 
> We are adding one shared library for DFP and we may want to add some
> other gcc  functions into another shared library in the future. Why not
> give the new shared library a more generic name as a place for
> future potential functions?

My plan for libgcc_dfp was to include only the compiler runtime support
for decimal float (arithmetic, comparisons, conversions) and the
underlying support needed to implement it.  Others at IBM are working
on C library support, plus CPU-tuned overrides of the compiler runtime
support, within the EGLIBC project.  Ryan Arnold can provide more
information about that.

H.J., what are your plans for decimal float support for the C library?

Is there support from GCC maintainers for putting wider decimal float
support into a library provided by GCC?

Janis