firefox3 build fails on alpha

[Bernd Walter]

On Sat, Aug 02, 2008 at 05:01:23PM +0000, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> Anton Shterenlikht <mexas at bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> > I'm happy to test firefox3 on alpha, but need to learn about pathes.
> > 
> > In this particular case it seems that (at least) 2 files
> > are missing from the distribution:
> > 
> > 	xptcinvoke_freebsd_alpha.cpp
> > 	xptcstubs_freebsd_alpha.cpp
> 
> Yes.  These need to be created.
> 
> You have stumbled on a dirty secret:  the Mozilla family programs
> rely on a part that must be ported at the assembly(!) language level
> to each processor/compiler/(operating system) combination.
> 
> > I think that whoever created the tar file simply forgot to add the freebsd
> > files.
> 
> No, somebody needs to write them.

I wrote them a few years back for mozilla and they were part of the port.
Don't know what happened in the meantime, because since alpha support is
removed I stopped spending time into it.
The whole xptcinvoke thing is completely breandead anyway.
The intention was to have a portable interfacing to modules, but in fact
they just read the C++ vtable using assembly, which the compiler can do
without any help.
The assembly calling functions need to know the compiler specific
vtable and not a fixed self defined, which is not what I expected to see.
It took me several days to understand that they want something senseless.

-- 
B.Walter <bernd at bwct.de> http://www.bwct.de
Modbus/TCP Ethernet I/O Baugruppen, ARM basierte FreeBSD Rechner uvm.