Re: (bib) libobjc build failure

[Nicola Pero <nicola at brainstorm dot co dot uk>]

Sorry to answer late - had been away for a few days.

> >>Are the other thr-*.c files in libobjc ever used anymore?
> >>
> >
> >Not in the libobjc shipped with GCC ... but if you want to build libobjc
> >separate from GCC, which could be a headache :-), but it's quite possible
> >if you rewrite the makefiles and add some manual config for your platform,
> >they are very useful, as the provide the otherwise missing code for thread
> >support.
> >
> I don't think it's practical to add a separate-build requirement to
> libobjc; if nothing else, the tm.h inclusion makes it even more
> closely tied to gcc/ than libstdc++ sources are now.

Yes ... and no - it's not difficult to extract the little configuration
bits needed by libobjc and put them into a separate file - it's really
quite simple to build libobjc standalone at the moment if you hack it.

But I agree about not 'adding a separate-build requirement to libobjc'.

Actually, if I can reply to myself, the libobjc/thr-*.c files make it no
easier to build a standalone libobjc than the gcc/gthr-*.h files do.  To
build a standalone libobjc, you could just copy the gcc/gthr-*.h into
libobjc, and use those instead of libobjc/thr-*.c.  It's not particularly
difficult.

So if we all agree about this :-) when the CVS main branch is open again,
I'll submit patches to remove the old/unused libobjc/thr-*.c files,
update/rewrite the backend/frontend section in the libobjc/THREADS file,
and similar cleanups.


> It's also not very useful to compile with any compiler other than GCC.

Yes ... even if there are many GCC compiler versions around. :-)


> So let's just commit to making GCC's libobjc the only one that GNUStep
> would ever need.

I'll agree on that, and generally I'll agree that 'adding a separate-build
requirement to libobjc' would just turn into a waste of our time, without
any special advantage.

But, generally, trying to have libobjc reasonably standalone and
independent from GCC looks like something good to me ... but I think
having the libobjc/thr-*.c files rather than the gcc/gthr-*.h does not
make a particular difference in this respect, which is why I'd agree to
kill them.