[cdt-dev] Architecture-specific switches redux

[Corey Ashford <cjashfor@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

Let me first apologize for this long-winded email.

Many months ago I sent an email to this list about adding some 
architecture-specific switches to the CDT so that we can make it easier 
for users of the PowerPC architecture to create 64-bit executables.

Some discussion ensued and the conclusion came to was that the CDT team 
would like to solve the issue of the many possible architecture-specific 
(and other) switches, but not to add the switches one at a time in an 
ad-hoc fashion.  We briefly discussed having gcc generate an XML 
description of its switches to be consumed by the CDT, and the CDT would 
dynamically generate a build tool settings page for that compiler.

That XML-based solution would require a lot of engineering, well beyond 
what we initially had in mind.

So our group is still stuck at the point of wanting these 64-bit 
switches to be available somehow, at the very least in the documentation.

I have looked through the CDT documentation, and while it looks good and 
seems to cover many topics, there is no section describing 
architecture-specific compiler options.  I think there is an unwritten 
assumption there that the developer knows he is using gcc and that the 
gcc man pages is where he needs to look at to figure out which extra 
switches are needed, if any.  Should this be written down?  Is there an 
accepted way of adding compiler-specific info to the CDT docs?

One alternative we have discussed in my group is to create a version of 
the CDT that is tuned to the PowerPC and re-distribute it on a web site 
like penguinppc.org.  I'd rather not have to do that if I can avoid it. 
 Are there any known pratfalls in that approach, other than the obvious 
maintenance issues?

I also got to wondering if I could just create a small plug-in that 
plugs into an extension point of org.eclipse.managedbuilder.gnu.ui, that 
adds the switches using that.  However, it appears that 
managedbuilder.gnu.ui doesn't have any extension points to plug into. I 
am a new user/developer of plug-ins, so I may be missing the extension 
point somehow.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to move forward with this issue would 
be appreciated.


Regards,

- Corey


--
Corey Ashford
Software Engineer
IBM Linux Technology Center, Linux Toolchain
Beaverton, OR
503-578-3507
cjashfor@xxxxxxxxxx