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Re: Altivec Linux support in GCC
Aldy Hernandez wrote:
"Michel" == Michel LESPINASSE <walken at zoy dot org> writes:
> On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 12:49:48PM -0500, Kumar Gala wrote:
>> 1. What are there two options to enable the support? (-maltivec
>> -mabi=altivec). If I have a Linux PPC targeted GCC why do I need to
>> tell it to use the abi to get altivec code generation? This just seems
>> confusing to the user (I dont have to specify the abi for any other
>> option).
Still, only the minority of users do this.
I agree with y'all that -maltivec without -mabi=altivec is useful,
what I have argued for in the past (and again now), is having
-maltivec imply -mabi=altivec as the default. Then, if you want the
functionality you describe, use -maltivec -mabi=no-altivec.
Sounds like a good idea. I think when this all originally went in,
we were being cautious and incremental - -maltivec would always work,
but -mabi=altivec required cooperating libraries and such. However,
I think we're past that initial phase now!
Apple goes one further actually, forces AltiVec-friendly ABI always,
since system can trash you if you try to use AltiVec ops but not
the proper ABI.
Stan