Re: ARM support

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

Erik Poupaert writes:
 > 
 > > This can be done at link time if a linker is sufficiently smart.
 > > Indeed, it is done for C++, where it is called "vtable garbage
 > > collection." 
 > 
 > Modifying gcj to emit the proper markers, and modifying ld to
 > utilize them, sounds like a major development effort, involving the
 > risk of subtly affecting existing tools, that actually work fine
 > already. It also requires the profound knowledge of deeply buried
 > internal APIs inside the toolchain.

Yes, it's a big job.  Otherwise it would already be done...

 > The ability to obtain a fully validated ast for a source file is
 > tremendously valuable. You can re-use it in so many different
 > contexts. I was thinking of source code completion in editors,
 > documentation tools, and so on. However, it should use the same
 > lexer, parser, and validators as the real compiler uses.

Indeed.  However, we can't output a full AST because it would then be
possible to use gcj as the front end of an unfree Java compiler.

Andrew.