Re: Adding zlib to GCC

[Tom Tromey <tromey at cygnus dot com>]

Mark> I'm disappointed that these libraries are as hard as you say to
Mark> configure, build, and install correctly.  I would like to
Mark> download and install zlib, or the collector, just once -- not
Mark> rebuild it every time I have to rebuild GCC.

For zlib this is more or less achievable.  We'll have a configure
option that will let you choose to use the system zlib.

However, it is very convenient to have zlib in the tree, especially
for cross compiles.  In practice the maintenance burden of having zlib
in the tree is very, very low.  We hardly ever touch it.

For the collector it just isn't possible.  The Boehm GC currently
isn't really designed to be a generic library.  Many of the
configuration choices must be made at compile time, not runtime.  I
believe Hans is working on changing this, but it definitely isn't
ready yet.

Mark> I'm not sure what to do.  Do you think it is impractical to put
Mark> this stuff in the infrasructure directory, like some of the
Mark> other components that we use with GCC?  For example, dejagnu and
Mark> gperf are distributed that way.  I think that would be a cleaner
Mark> solution.

This might work for fastjar, which is a tool for the build system
only.  It isn't as practical for target libraries.

Tom