RE: Status page

["Boehm, Hans" <hans_boehm at hp dot com>]

How is it being built?

I suspect very few of the tests require a working GC.  This is probably OK, so long as we don't conclude that a port works just because there are few test failures.

Currently the collector just doesn't know about threads on Darwin.  This means I would expect a multithreaded build to:

1) Die if it ever tries to collect in a thread other than the main one.

2) Not ever scan local variables in threads other than the main one.  Thus objects referenced by those will be prematurely collected.

3) Not stop other threads while it's collecting.  This can also cause objects to be prematurely collected.  But empirically, the probability of that is fairly low; you may only see it once every few dozen collections.

Do current versions of Darwin support pthread_kill()?  If so, this may no longer be that hard to fix.

Hans

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Haley [mailto:aph@redhat.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 5:40 AM
> To: Jeff Sturm
> Cc: Andreas Tobler; java@gcc.gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Status page
> 
> 
> Jeff Sturm writes:
>  > On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, Andreas Tobler wrote:
>  > > > IMO, only ports that catch null pointer exceptions in 
> our testcases
>  > > > and have a working class loader can be described as 
> "OK" without
>  > > > further qualification.  I suggest gcj on Irix be 
> described as "works,
>  > > > but unfinished" on the status page.
>  > >
>  > > How do we call the darwin port? Nearly ready? Soon ready?
>  > 
>  > Darwin needs threads.  Surely it isn't very useful without threads.
> 
> True, but I would have expected more test failures with no threads at
> all.
> 
> Andrew.
>