[news.eclipse.dsdp.rtsc] Re: XDC on Mac OS X

[dave russo <d-russo@xxxxxx>]

Amichi Amar wrote:
> > It is possible to help out now.  The RTSC tools include a number of 
> > native executables (e.g., xs, xdc, and xdcpkg, see 
>
> There currently isn't a cross compiler from windows to os x so I need to 
> build xs, xdc etc from scratch to get them onto os x. Are these sources 
> available?
We're working on getting the xdc, xs, sources available; we still need 
to get them through the eclipse IP process.

> Otherwise, I could put together a target (simple copy of the Linux86 
> target) - but I have no way to test anything out (i.e. can't build 
> native code etc).
>
> So, what to do?
Good question.  It's tricky but possible ...

We use the xdc tools on Linux to build Solaris executables _without_ a 
Linux-to-Solaris cross compiler.  I think we can do the same with OS X.

The way it works is to create a target (like gnu.targets.Sparc) which 
can be setup to remotely execute the compiler/linker/archiver on a 
different host.  Recall that targets simply provide _any_ command 
sufficient to convert a .c to a .obj.  Without a cross-compiler, the 
target supplies a command that simply rsh's to an appropriate host and 
does the compile.

When building on Linux, for example, the Linux host will rsh the 
compiler command to a specified Solaris host (see the remoteHost config 
param of the gnu.targets.ITarget interface 
http://rtsc.eclipse.org/cdoc-tip/index.html#gnu/targets/ITarget.html#remote.Host). 
 The current gnu.targets.ITarget requires a network file system seen by 
both hosts.

We even use this technique to build Windows executables from a Linux 
host _without_ a cross-compiler(!).  This has additional complications 
because the file systems are so different between *nix and Windows, but 
among *nix hosts the process is fairly easy.

> Amichi