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Re: [Fwd: Re: [PATCH] MIPS32 DSP instructions again]
- From: Ian Lance Taylor <ian at airs dot com>
- To: Dominic Sweetman <dom at mips dot com>
- Cc: Paul Koning <pkoning at equallogic dot com>, nigel at mips dot com, echristo at redhat dot com, fu at mips dot com, rsandifo at nildram dot co dot uk, radhika at mips dot com, binutils at sourceware dot org
- Date: 09 Jun 2005 15:05:02 -0400
- Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [PATCH] MIPS32 DSP instructions again]
- References: <42A86D4B.9010304@mips.com><17064.33380.406352.792952@arsenal.mips.com>
Dominic Sweetman <dom@mips.com> writes:
> Which comes down to this: under what circumstances might it be helpful
> for the assembler to reject a piece of code which it could have
> assembled?
In general, it is better to get a compile-time error than a run-time
error.
For example, suppose some library is written to use the new
instructions. Suppose it's a portable library, for various
processors. I get the source code for that library, and I compile it
with the options appropriate for my processor. Unfortunately, there
is a bug, and the library uses an asm statement with an instruction
which is not supported on my processor. I would prefer to get a
compile-time error rather than a run-time error.
Similar examples involving assembly code in a portable OS kernel--say
one with builtin graphics support--are also fairly easy to concoct.
Ian