clang and sparc64

[Kurt Lidl]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 08:27:35AM -0500, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
> On 09/17/12 01:36, Craig Butler wrote:
> > Hi Folks
> >
> > What is the latest on clang on the ultrasparc powered boxes ??
> >
> > I remember reading something on freebsd-questions@ that clang doesn't
> > compile on sparc64.
> >
> > If the project pushes ahead and makes that the defacto compiler wont we
> > be a bit stuck ?
> >
> > I'll try a clang build later today after my Netra X1 dev machine has
> > finished updating...
> >
> > Kind Regards
> >
> > Craig Butler
> 
> I believe that the main problem is that the LLVM SPARC backend is, as 
> far as I can tell, unmaintained and bitrotting.

I think that the backend/code generation support for SPARC is OK,
it's believed to be stable and correct.  It doesn't have any of the
enhancements for the MC stuff (integrated Machine Code handling,
which allows for direct generation of .o files for example).  Only
the ARM and x86 backends have that support.

> It also mostly only produces 32-bit code -- I think there were some
> experimental patches for SPARC64, but I don't know what happened with
> those in the end.
> -Nathan

I believe all the partial support for sparc64 has been removed from
the backend.  There's nobody really working on adding it either, as
far as I've seen my periodic reading the LLVMdev mailing list.

It's obvious that the x86 and ARM backends are getting most of the love
directed at LLVM from Apple's developers -- they pay the developers,
they get to say where the resources are targeted.  There also seems
to be an active set of people working on PowerPC support, both 32bit and
64bit.  There does not seem to be anybody working on extending the
SPARC support.

-Kurt