Re: toolchain/47503: Request automated addition of gfortran to base compiler set

[Jason Bacon <jwbacon%tds.net@localhost>]

On 01/24/2013 23:35, David Holland wrote:
> The following reply was made to PR toolchain/47503; it has been noted by GNATS.
>
> From: David Holland<dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>
> To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: toolchain/47503: Request automated addition of gfortran to base
>   compiler set
> Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:30:02 +0000
>
>   On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 02:40:01AM +0000, jwbacon%tds.net@localhost wrote:
>    >  The pkgsrc gcc packages are not viable at this point, since they
>    >  only work on NetBSD.
>
>   Not AFAIK...
I misspoke.  They may also work on DragonFly.

Presently (or at least recently) none of the gcc packages build on RHEL 
5, CentOS 6, or Darwin.  I put some effort into patching them and got 
one to build on RHEL, but still experienced runtime errors.  I abandoned 
the effort when we started moving toward CentOS 6, which has a mature 
base compiler suite.


  >  It would be hard to match the various base toolchain versions
  >  anyway, which leads to mixing toolchains in package builds.

 At least in theory this shouldn't matter.

Actually, the gcc project doesn't guarantee object code compatibility 
across versions, so it does matter in theory.  In practice, it's 
generally OK to mix two GNU compilers with the same major version, but I 
have run into link problems in the past when mixing gcc versions.

There's a chance that relying on gcc packages for Fortran support while 
using the base C/C++ compilers will bite pkgsrc users down the road.  A 
gfortran in the base would eliminate that risk.

>    >  Finally, it would be messy to use the base
>    >  gfortran on some platforms and a gcc package on others.
>
>   This is the whole point of the compiler logic in pkgsrc, though.
>
>   pkgsrc is at least in theory capable of installing a FORTRAN compiler
>   of your choice, more or less on its own, if and only if the base
>   FORTRAN compiler is nonexistent or unsuitable.
>
>   If this isn't working (or doesn't know about gfortran vs. g77 vs. f2c
>   or whatnot) it should be fixed.
I would agree that it *should* be fixed, but it's an awfully squirrelly 
problem and I think it would be much easier and much safer to build 
gfortran as part of the base.

I've been wrangling with these issues for over a year and a complete 
base compiler suite seems like the only clean, safe solution.

Thanks,

    -J

--
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Jason W. Bacon
jwbacon%tds.net@localhost
http://personalpages.tds.net/~jwbacon
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