Re: obseleting VMS ports?

["Douglas B Rupp" <rupp at gnat dot com>]

| 
| The existing documentation describes a complicated scheme for
| transforming unix-style paths into VMS-style paths.  Is this still used?
| Is it needed? Does it work?  Where is the code located and who maintains
| it (if anyone)?

Not used. Not needed. Doesn't work. Not maintained.

| 
| It says that GCC with a VMS target *requires* GAS and *requires* the VMS
| linker (not GNU ld).  Is this accurate?  Any other weird caveats?  Do
| both the VMS debugger and GDB work, or does only one?

Accurate (Gas and VMS link).  GDB works well. VMS Debug for single stepping
through sources and assembly level.

| 
| It looks from the code in the config directory like you can't
| cross-compile from anything else to VMS.  Or maybe you just can't
| cross-*link*.  If you can't cross-compile, that should be documented.
| If you just can't cross-link, perhaps a few notes on how to deal would
| be worthwhile.

Cross compile works fine. Cross link doesn't. Cross assembly marginal (problems
with weird VMS object file format.)

| 
| It's not clear what non-gcc C compilers under VMS can be used to compile
| GCC, or whether there are any caveats when doing so.

DEC C compilers only support VMS style commands and formats, so gcc cannot be
built with DEC C without significant hassle.  THere's one or two parts of gcc
that have to be built with DEC C because Gnu C doesn't support the functionality.
(e.g. pragma Pointer_Size)

| 
| It's unclear whether building gcc/gdb/binutils in the same directory is
| a good idea, or a bad idea.  (on most machines it's a good idea, but...)

Not currently supported. Currently GDB and binutils are built with DEC using a
custom Makefile.

| 
| It looks like GNU make is mandatory, but it's neither clear nor
| documented.

Gnu make is mandatory for building gcc with gcc.

| 
| --Nathanael