Q : Initial problems

[Bryce McKinlay]

Mart Käsper wrote:

> as a newbie in the GCJ area, I've run into some initial stuff that I
> haven't been able to resolve from FAQ/mail-lists/etc - I'm sure the
> solution lies in front of me, please guide me ...

> * when running gcj, it complains about not being able to read the
>   specs

> * how does cgj know where to fetch the JDK-originated symbols from ?

> Where should I start ?

You do not need, and cannot use Sun's (or anyone else's) implementation
of the standard java classes with the gcj compiler. You should start by
building and installing libgcj:

http://sources.redhat.com/java/download.html

It s0unds to me like the binary distribution you installed did not
include libgcj.

>   My built from source variant created a binary OK, but running it
>   produces a core dump (apparently something with the initial creation
>   of static variables, according to adb).
>

This is what we call the "solaris linker bug". libtool is failing to
arrange for libgcj's static C++ initializers to be run. You should be
able to get around this by using GNU ld, and rebuilding both gcc and
libgcj with the "--with-ld=/path/to/gnu/ld" configure option.

regards

  [ bryce ]