Re: A patch for linux 2.1.127

[Joe Buck <jbuck at synopsys dot com>]

> It seems to me like that tool exists, but it's not gas.  gas can't be all
> things to all people, and I think it is intented to speak a pseudo
> assembly language which is portable.  As always, portable code is not
> nessisarily what you want, sometimes speed is more important.

I am puzzled by such remarks.  gas is real, not pseudo, assembly language;
one gas instruction becomes one machine instruction.  There is absolutely
no effect on speed.  There are only two differences between Intel's
assembler and gas:

* Intel has a macro preprocessor.  Unix folks use the C preprocessor or m4
  to get the same effect, but since the main use of the assembler is as a
  target for the compiler, a basic assembler that just does what it's told
  is considered desirable.

* Intel has different syntax for the instructions.  This is purely a
  matter of syntax; a 1-1 translation is possible.
 
Given this, anyone who has the idea that there is any kind of speed
sacrifice imposed by using gas is simply misinformed.  gas turns one
assembly instruction into one machine instruction; the input to gas
exactly specifies what instruction is used.

The only reason you should care is if you have existing code in Intel
assembly syntax that you want to use.  What's needed, as someone else
said, is a tool that takes Intel syntax, does the macro processing and
syntax conversion, and produces gas-format output.  If this tool existed,
it would impose a zero-cycle time penalty and a zero-word space
penalty: the exact same object code would be produced.

The folks out there who are in love with Intel syntax are invited to
contribute code.  That's how the Linux and GNU communities work:
people who aren't satisfied write new code to make things better.