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Re: RFA: remove tm.h include from function.h


On Thu, 25 Nov 2010, Joern Rennecke wrote:

> > There's a case for having multiple tm.h variants for different uses.  For
> > example, completing the toplevel libgcc transition will involve some
> > headers in libgcc/config for those cases where target macros really are
> > appropriate rather than built-in macros and functions and other similar
> > approaches.
> 
> Would that then be macros that would be available to user programs via
> an installed header file?

No.

> Or are you talking about ways to identify the build time or other
> circumstances of building the package?
> Otherwise, I'm at a loss why the libgcc should be able to do things that
> user code couldn't do.

I am talking about making configuration in $target/$multilib/libgcc/ 
entirely independent of that in gcc/ - thus, having libgcc not use any 
configuration information derived from building or configuring the gcc/ 
directory.  This has several advantages, including much cleaner ways for 
libgcc configuration variables to depend on the multilib (so different 
multilibs can built different source files into libgcc), and the 
possibility of building libgcc separately from building the compiler 
proper.

It ought to be possible to change the set of multilibs after the compiler 
is built, but building libgcc with an installed compiler isn't readily 
possible at present.

It also ought to be possible, when bootstrapping a cross compiler and 
associated libc, to build and install the compiler just once with all 
relevant features enabled, then iterate on the alternate sequence of GCC 
library and libc builds, rather than needing to do multiple rebuilds of 
the whole compiler.  (At present, building for a GNU/Linux target, you 
need to build a minimal compiler with static libgcc in order to configure 
glibc and install its headers and crt*.o and build a dummy libc.so, which 
in turn are needed to build the second compiler with shared libgcc, which 
in turn allows you actually to do a full glibc build, which in turn is 
needed to build non-C runtime libraries from GCC.)

Certain macros used in libgcc, such as DECLARE_LIBRARY_RENAMES in 
particular, seem to be clear cases for use of target macros - but the 
headers containing those macros should be under the libgcc directory, and 
selected by configure code in that directory.  See 
<http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Top-Level_Libgcc_Migration> for some lists 
classifying some of the target macros used in libgcc.

Furthermore, I would like to see source files in GCC including headers 
defining macros and declaring types and functions only where those macros, 
types and functions are (a) appropriate to use in the relevant source 
files and (b) actually available in all programs into which the resulting 
objects are linked.

Regarding (b), code built for the target should not include anything 
involving the "tree" type at all.  Nor should code built for the driver 
(or collect2, gcov etc.) because the "tree" interfaces aren't available 
there.  You should never get a link error from accidental use of an 
interface not available in the GCC program you are linking without first 
getting an error or warning about an undeclared function.  As I see it, 
there should be some common infrastructure, usable everywhere and linked 
into all GCC programs (and using a cut-down coretypes.h not mentioning any 
irrelevant types, and not using tm.h or target hooks of any kind at all); 
further code shared by the driver and the compilers proper but not other 
programs (this includes option handling); and the code for the core 
compilers; these could use subdirectories to make the separation clearer 
if desired.

Regarding (a), as well as containing definitions for different programs 
tm.h contains definitions appropriate for different places.  There are 
target-specific macros such as TARGET_64BIT, which should only ever be 
used within code in config/ (including the .md files, and insn-*.c 
generated from them).  And there are the macros that are actually intended 
to be used directly in code outside config/ - BITS_PER_UNIT is one of 
those.  Because definitions of the latter macros may use the former 
macros, splitting these into separate headers is tricky, but I think the 
aim eventually should be to eliminate the latter case completely.

I discussed further advantages of splitting up tm.h (by where the 
different macros are used) in 
<http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-10/msg00294.html>.

> > then create a separate set of
> > configuration headers for them in the source tree.
> 
> I was kinda hoping we could stop at BITS_PER_UNIT...

If you want to stop at BITS_PER_UNIT, do not go extracting definitions 
with grep.  Have config.gcc define tm_bits_per_unit_file like it defines 
tm_file - all existing targets might use "8bit-unit.h" as the definition.  
Create tm-bits-per-unit.h based on the tm_bits_per_unit_file definition, 
and have tm.h include tm-bits-per-unit.h.  (Plus all the usual dependency 
updates.)  That would certainly be better than your patch in terms of 
removing dependencies - direct or indirect - of source files on the full 
set of tm.h headers.

> > Such changes should *definitely* not be mixed in with any other patch like
> > you have done here.
> 
> So what do you propose to do instead?  Including tm.h in more source files?

See contribute.html:

    Don't mix together changes made for different reasons. Send them 
    individually. Ideally, each change you send should be impossible to 
    subdivide into parts that we might want to consider separately, 
    because each of its parts gets its motivation from the other parts.

This patch could be divided into *at least* three parts.

(i) The parts adding explicit tm.h includes, or comments on such includes, 
to files using target macros.  Those should be reasonably uncontroversial.

(ii) Creation of tm-bits-per-unit.h, and replacing selected tm.h includes 
with includes of the new header.

(iii) The actual function.h changes, though as noted I think they are 
following the wrong approach.

> > but at least for CUMULATIVE_ARGS it would be better to
> > remove all variables and fields of that type from target-independent code,
> 
> I consider calls.c and function.c target-dependent, but I'm not sure if
> you do too.  Could you clarify?

I consider everything in gcc/, outside of gcc/config/ to be 
target-independent, except maybe for a few misplaced files such as 
mips-tdump.c and mips-tfile.c.

> > instead using a target-independent type and having targets responsible in
> > some way for allocating and deallocating values of that type.
> 
> AFAICT the meaning of this statement becomes either approval or rejection of
> the basic premise of my patch depending on how the above question is answered.

I don't think target-independent files should use types whose definitions 
depend on the target.  The more substantial the target dependence, the 
more desirable that target-independent files should not use the type.

When a target-independent file is being compiled, the target-specific 
definition of CUMULATIVE_ARGS should not be visible to the host compiler 
at all.  Where a target-independent file needs to use a datastructure 
involving such target-dependent data, it should do so through a 
target-independent type.  The code under config/ should then do the 
necessary base-to-derived-class dynamic casts.  The fact that there exists 
a type called CUMULATIVE_ARGS in each back end would then become a 
historical coincidence rather than an actual requirement that back ends 
make any use of such a type name in future.

I consider your patch 
<http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2010-11/msg01994.html> to be a 
reasonable start towards implementing such an approach for CUMULATIVE_ARGS 
- but to complete it, get_cumulative_args and pack_cumulative_args should 
move into each target's code, all instances of CUMULATIVE_ARGS outside 
config/ should go away and additional interfaces should be added to 
initialize a cumulative_args_t for a target (which would involve 
allocating the target-specific storage) and to finish using it 
(deallocating storage, though this probably isn't important).

HARD_REG_SET could be trickier (more likely to involve performance cost if 
you abstract it away everywhere) but you could at least replace it with a 
void * pointer in function.h and use inline functions defined elsewhere to 
convert to/from the actual HARD_REG_SET type.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com


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