Re: Host name guidelines? (and more)

["J. Johnston" <jjohnstn at redhat dot com>]

Earnie Boyd wrote:
> 
> "J. Johnston" wrote:
> >
> > KJK::Hyperion wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi all. I'm about to add a new host to newlib, and I wonder if there are
> > > more precise guidelines than "machine-vendor-os". In particular: who's the
> > > "vendor", exactly? the machine's or the os's? And what characters can be
> > > used as "os", other than alphanumeric? I'm using newlib to power ReactOS's
> > > POSIX environment, called POSIX+, and I wonder if a host name of
> > > "i386-reactos-posix+" would be legal
> > >
> >
> > The name would not be legal.  AFAIK, there are no documented restrictions on using the
> > '+' character, but regardless, your name doesn't conform to machine-vendor-os.  You might
> > want to use pc for your manufacturer field which indicates "for an IBM PC compatible
> > system".  Thus, the name would be: i386-pc-reactos.  This is similar to the existing cygwin
> > configuration which is i[3456]86-pc-cygwin.
> >
> > The following is some internal documentation regarding configuration names that may be of some help to you.  I also have some details about your
> > newlib documentation problem following
> > this excerpt.
> >
> 
> So, based on this doco, i386-pc-reactos-posix+ would be acceptable.
> Reactos is what the doco is calling kernel and posix+ is what the doco
> is calling operating_system.
> 

Upon further discussion here, it appears the machine-vendor-kernel-os format was done for
linux for historical reasons and is not recommended.  As far as the '+' character goes, it has never been used before and I though I can't say exactly
what problems will occur, I wouldn't recommend it.  One can combine the reactos and posix+ (posixplus) parts together to form the OS field (e.g.
i386-pc-reactosposixplus).  Newlib doesn't own the top level configuration files so my opinion is certainly not the final word on the subject.  The
files are taken from gcc.  Thus, this topic should really be discussed on the gcc mailing lists as any new configuration would have to be approved by
their maintainers.

-- Jeff J.