Re: POC for GCC ARM back end?

[Randall Smith <rsmith at qualcomm dot com>]

        Nick:

        I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to provide us with this information.  We'll take your advice and look at the latest GCC release, and get back in touch with you and Richard when (and if!) we have more specific questions.  (We have the complicating factor that we are using a Wind River port of GCC, so presumably we would need to bring their changes forward, as well as recompile the VxWorks distribution libraries, in order to use a newer GCC release >:-O ).

        Once again, thanks for the timely and helpful response to our query.

        Randall.



At 01:21 AM 2/6/2003, Nick Clifton wrote:
>Hi Randall,
>
>>       We're using GCC (2.95.3, I believe) to compile C++ for the ARM
>>       processor.  We're finding that the quality of the code
>>       optimization for this processor is fairly low, and would like
>>       to talk to someone who is familiar with the history of the ARM
>>       back end for GCC, primarily with an eye to seeing whether
>>       optimizer improvements have been made since our release and/or
>>       are likely to be made in the near future.
>
>In general work on optimisations for GCC has tended to be in the
>generic part of the compiler, where they will benefit lots of ports,
>not just the ARM port.  There are some ARM specific optimisations as
>well, but these are not a focal point for development work.
>
>It would definitely be worth your while downloading the latest release
>of the GCC sources (3.2.1) and comparing the code it produces with the
>code you are currently obtaining from your 2.95.3 compiler.  Beware
>however, that the 3.x series of GCC compilers use a different, and
>incompatible C++ ABI.  So you would have to rebuild and and all C++
>programs and libraries if you wanted them to work with the new
>compiler.
>
>
>>       Would it be possible for you to give us the name of someone
>>       who can answer these kinds of questions for us (and generally
>>       put us in the picture on GCC's ARM support)?  I'm not sure how
>>       GCC's contributing support network operates, or what the
>>       protocol is for these kinds of requests. 
>
>The best people to ask are the maintainers for the GCC ARM port.  You
>can find a list of these people in the MAINTAINERS file which ships as
>part of the GCC sources.  Currently the maintainers are myself and
>Richard Earnshaw (rearnsha@arm.com).
>
>I would recommend visiting the GCC web site:
>
>  http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html
>
>For information on how contributing and supporting GCC works.  It is
>also worth noting that there are companies who will sell you support
>and/or development contracts for GCC, should you be interested.
>
>Cheers
>        Nick

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