Re: Add Android related compilation options and multilib options

[Chris Lattner <clattner at apple dot com>]

On Jun 16, 2009, at 2:12 PM, Mark Mitchell wrote:

> Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>
> > > Why don't you add android as a os variant and configure
> > > for a arm-eabi-android target instead?
> >
> > That is what Doug Kwan proposed originally, and Mark Mitchell said  
> > this:
> >
> > http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2008-06/msg01795.html
>
> Well, ultimately, this is a question for an ARM backend maintainer,  
> if a
> dispute needs to be resolved.
>
> But, my feeling is that far too many things in GCC are determined at
> compile-time.  GCC is the only compiler that requires that you pick at
> compile-time what RTOS you're targeting, and that's not a feature.   
> Some
> compilers can even switch between architecture (e.g., ARM vs. MIPS)  
> with
> a compile-time option.  So, we should be making GCC more dynamic, not
> less dynamic, and adding -mandroid is a step towards that.  If we were
> to have an arm-android configuration, it should just be arm-eabi with
> -mandroid turned on by default.

Clang is one of these "more dynamic" compilers.  You can link many  
targets into it and use -arch to switch between architectures within  
the same OS/version or the -triple option to switch to completely  
different target triples.

That said, if it were my choice, I'd strongly prefer making android  
it's own target triple.  If you want to make GCC more dynamic, make it  
work with multiple target triples first.

-Chris