[OT] RE: Canadian cross on cygwin

["Dave Korn" <dk at artimi dot com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gcc-owner On Behalf Of James E Wilson
> Sent: 31 August 2004 01:28

> On Thu, 2004-08-26 at 01:12, Tal Agmon wrote:
> > Isn't compiling a compiler that is going to generate crx 
> executable, will run
> > on windows and built on cygwin is a canadian cross?
> 
> cygwin does run on windows, so it isn't clear what you mean here.

  Tal, I am going to interpret it as meaning you want it to be mingw-hosted,
i.e. not to require the cygwin dll in end use.  So stop me if I've got it
wrong.

> The easy solution here is that you build a --target=crx-elf compiler. 
> This will give you a cygwin cross compiler to crx-elf.  Anyone with
> cygwin can run it, and perhaps all they need is the cygwin dll, though
> it doesn't hurt to give them an entire cygwin environment.
> 
> If you won't want to use the cygwin dll, then one wonders why you are
> using cygwin at all.  Using mingw32 to build a --target=crx-elf
> compiler, and you will get a mingw32 cross compiler to crx-elf. 
> Assuming that mingw32 can build gcc.  I don't have any experience with
> mingw32, so I don't know what its capabilities are.

  Although mingw/msys works well enough, the cygwin environment is a good
deal nicer to work in, as it provides a fully posix fs and environment,
rather than trying to squeeze *nix-y software into dealing with
windoze-style file paths.  But it is an emulation layer, which makes it
slower; you might well want to use it as a dev environment but have your
production compiler mingw hosted for native win32 speed[*].

> Trying to build a canadian cross cygwin build/mingw32 host/crx-elf
> target is probably a lot of unnecessary complexity.  Building canadian
> crosses takes a lot of time and effort to get right.  Don't waste your
> time doing it if you really don't need to.

  I don't think a canadian cross is necessary, in fact.  The cygwin gcc is
both a native (cygwin-targetted) and cross (mingw-targetted) compiler.
Adding "-mno-cygwin" to the CFLAGS (and any similar linker flags etc.) and
configuring simply with "--target=crx-elf" should produce a mingw-hosted
gcc.  With a bit of luck and a tailwind.

    cheers, 
      DaveK
[*]  Hey!  I never thought I'd use the words "win32" and "speed" in the same
sentence :-O
-- 
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