Re: Error when building on AIX

[Perry Smith <pedzsan at gmail dot com>]

On Jul 31, 2012, at 1:55 AM, nick clifton wrote:

> Hi Perry,
>>> /usr/work/src/binutils-2.22/bfd/bfd.c: In function '_bfd_default_error_handler':
>>> /usr/work/src/binutils-2.22/bfd/bfd.c:730:10: error: value computed is not used
> 
>> I can't even figure out what this message is trying to tell me.
> 
> My guess would be that gcc is complaining that the result of calling the "putc" function is not being used.  In fact, I suspect that on AIX putc is not a function call at all, but rather a macro, and the value that this macro computes is not being used.
> 
> Try changing line 730 to:
> 
>  (void) putc ('\n', stderr);
> 
> If this works, please let me know and I can update the sources.

First: Thank you for the reply.  Some groups don't seem interested in my AIX woes.

I found what the error was telling me later.  I had my google search too tight.  It also appears that the compile tells gcc to treat warnings as errors -- which is nice.  It gives me some extra confidence that when I get the compile done, I will have something that works.  But that was part of my confusion.  I didn't understand why such a small error would cause the compile to stop.  

I first tried the void but that didn't work.  I also tried assigning it to a local variable which did not work either.  As a quick hack, I did:

#ifdef putc
#undef putc
#endif

and that worked.  It is a macro and it is dereferencing something... I didn't really take the time to figure out what it was doing.  I won't be able to change it so I just went for the work around.

I've since progressed further with this quest -- hitting and fixing other somewhat trivial issues.  I will update with a set of diffs when I get closer to the finish line.

On my second question: anyone else out there using binutils on AIX 6.1?

Thank you again,
Perry