AIX4.3.2: problem with 64-bit .o's

[Geoff Keating]

> From: "Bleser, Pascal" <PBleser@atos-group.com>
> Cc: "Engel, Christian" <CEngel@atos-group.com>,
>         "Zimmermann, Armin"
> 	 <AZimmermann@atos-group.com>
> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:51:24 +0100

> I've downloaded the latest snapshot of the GNU binutils from
> sourceware.cygnus.com and built them on a AIX 4.3.2 box (IBM F50).

I'm running 4.3.3.0.01 on my F50.  I can recommend that version.

> Now ar works (with binutils 2.9.1, the new "big format" archives
> were not supported), but nm complains about not recognizing 64-bit
> object files (all those *_64.o-files) - it rather looks like warnings,
> because nm goes on and works properly for 32-bit obj-files.
> But after having a look at the bfd code for RS6000, it looks like
> 64-bit-objs *are* supported (yes, I've also tried building the bfd
> with --enable-64bit-bfd: it didn't help :( )...

They're not.  At present, the situation is that the sourceware
binutils work fine for AIX in 32-bit mode (except for ld), and have
minimal support for 64-bit AIX (just enough to compile 32-bit objects
on it).  Cygnus/Red Hat is working on 64-bit support.

> Is there anyone on this list working on AIX 4.3.2 who could give me
> some help and share his/her experiences ?
> We're using loats of GNU tools (especially the GCC 2.95.2 compiler
> set for C and C++) on our boxes and it's really a big, big problem
> if we can't get it to work properly.

You can use the native binutils, and they mostly work.  GCC can build
64-bit objects with the native tools.  

> Although, at first, it doesn't look like a big problem: all the obj-files
> are shipped in 32 (foo.o) *and* 64 (foo_64.o) bit format in all the
> AIX archives. But I didn't try gdb nor g++ yet... :\

g++ and gdb are supposed to work (unless gdb support is not in
sourceware yet).

> BTW, what does the statement
> "   # The configure and build of ld are currently disabled because
>     # GNU ld is known to be broken for AIX 4.2 and 4.3 (at least)
>     # The symptom is that GDBtk 4.18 fails at startup with a segfault
>     # if linked by GNU ld, but not if linked by the native ld."
> mean in binutils-000322/configure.in ?

What it says?

The linker support for AIX is buggy and incomplete.

GDBtk is the new spiffy graphical GDB that you can check out of
sourceware.

-- 
- Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@cygnus.com>