Re: Bug 12098: Detecting a valid assembler

[Jim Wilson <wilson at specifixinc dot com>]

Dara Hazeghi wrote:
> in bug 12098 we have the oft reported problem that
> ia64-hpux bootstraps currently require GNU as

Historically, all we do for such targets is document that you need to 
use GNU as.  If you don't remember, you get assembler errors, and to any 
clued in user that indicates that you need GNU as.  For the rest, we 
just point them at the docs.

We don't have configure tests to detect the presence of GNU as, but we 
do have tests for GNU as features.  If there is a particular feature we 
need that is present in Intel/GNU as but not in HP as, then we could 
write a configure test for that feature.  Then in config/ia64/hpux.h we 
could have
#ifndef HAVE_GAS_FEATURE_NAME
#error "This port requires GNU as."
#endif

Another possible solution would be to add a configure check for the 
--with-gas patch.  This would be a minor inconvenience for people who 
already have GNU as installed.  The ia64-hpux target defaults to GNU as 
because we know we need it, and thus --with-gas is not currently needed. 
 However, if we choose to require it, then we could give an error if it 
is missing.
        if test x$gas = xno
        then
                echo "This target requires GNU as."
                exit 1
        fi

My preference would be to just do nothing, though if a volunteer wrote a 
patch we can certainly look at it.  I don't have access to ia64-hpux, so 
I don't know why GNU as is required.
--
Jim Wilson, GNU Tools Support, http://www.SpecifixInc.com