From owner-freebsd-ports Tue Sep 14 13:31:41 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from wall.polstra.com (rtrwan160.accessone.com [206.213.115.74]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9259514CEC for ; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:31:35 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jdp@polstra.com) Received: from vashon.polstra.com (vashon.polstra.com [206.213.73.13]) by wall.polstra.com (8.9.3/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA14773 for ; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:31:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jdp@polstra.com) From: John Polstra Received: (from jdp@localhost) by vashon.polstra.com (8.9.3/8.9.1) id NAA43490; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:31:30 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jdp@polstra.com) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:31:30 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199909142031.NAA43490@vashon.polstra.com> To: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to go about making a compiler port In-Reply-To: References: <8B57882C41A0D1118F7100805F9F68B51232C0DD@RED-MSG-45> Organization: Polstra & Co., Seattle, WA Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org In article , Thomas Gellekum wrote: > > lang/modula-3-lib is the "source" port for modula-3, this probably > comes closer to your wishes. Modula-3 bootstrapping is done with a set of "*.s" (assembly language source) files generated on another machine. The *.s files are assembled and linked on the target host, yielding a native compiler that can be used to build the rest of the stuff. Bootstrapping with assembly language sources seems weird at first, but it has some advantages. The *.s files are generated using a cross-compiler, so they can be made on any host (even a different architecture) that already has Modula-3 working on it. You only need a cross-compiler, not a cross-assembler or cross-linker. Minor library incompatibilities don't cause problems, because the linking takes place on the target host. It works pretty well in practice. John -- John Polstra jdp@polstra.com John D. Polstra & Co., Inc. Seattle, Washington USA "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up." -- Nora Ephron To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message