rearnsha@arm.com (Richard Earnshaw) writes:
> > > I'm currently using the same structure-alignment rules as
> > > NetBSD/arm32.  If anyone thinks I shouldn't, now would be a good time to
> > > tell me so.
> > 
> > It isn't clear that *we* should be using an ABI different from everone
> > else's on ARM, but that's a broader issue. :)
> > 
> 
> I'd like to see it fixed too -- in general we get better code on the ARM 
> with stricter alignment.  But the only chances I see of doing it are
> 
> 1) If we ever need to bump libc's major version (which would need 
> everything recompiling).  We could then try and sync it to that bump.
> 
> 2) If we move arm32 to ELF (which would also need a complete recompile 
> (I'm assuming that an elf executable can't use an a.out shared library.

"yes."

if arm26 is going to start out ELF, it should do so with the normal
alignment (really, structure padding) used by other arm systems.

When arm32 moves to ELF, it should be fixed, as well.


(that'll make a.out vs. ELF compatibility ... very painful on arm32,
but, well, the choice was made to do the wrong thing to avoid pain N
years ago, and when paying for things like that you've often gotta
include interest... 8-)


cgd