Re: Porting BFD to new architecture

[Mark D <mdlkml at atari-source dot com>]

On Wed, 2005-10-12 at 18:02 +0800, ibanez@sunplus.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  We are porting libbfd to a new architecture.
>  But the libbfd internal is highly architecture dependent which
>  is very different with other tools.
> 
>  For example, to port gas to a new target, all we need to do
>  is add some target related files, add a few lines to the config file
>  and rebuild it.
> 
>  But to port bfd, we need to hack the bfd source code.
>  It makes upgrade to a new libbfd version impossible without re-porting.
> 
>  How can we add our architecture to the libbfd in a smart and transparent
> way?
> 

This is kind of a strange question.  I mean if it's a totally new
architecture, it's a totally new CPU - in that case I know for certain
you must do a lot more with GAS.  Likewise if it was a brand new
architecture, you could model your binary format from a preexisting one
like aout or elf.  I handle binutils on m68kmint and we use a bfd format
that is a hacked up aout format.  Very little work needed to be done to
upgrade between versions, but you're not going to get away clean without
doing anything ever ;)

Thanks,
Mark