BFD_ASSEMBLER, bignum questions

[Stan Shebs]

Ian Lance Taylor wrote:

>Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com> writes:
>
>
>>A couple random GAS questions that the current sources are not
>>answering for me:
>>
>>* Are there any non-BFD configurations still in use? It looks like
>>configure can generate some, but they mostly seem really obscure,
>>maybe they're no longer in use.
>>
>
>Do you mean non-BFD, or non-BFD_ASSEMBLER?
>
And here I thought they were the same thing...

>
>BFD_ASSEMBLER is always used for alpha, arm, i386, ia64, mips, ns32k,
>pdp11, ppc, and sparc.  It is always used for elf, ecoff, and som.
>What's left is a29k, h8300, h8500, i960, m68k, m88k, ns32k, or32, sh,
>tahoe, tic80, vax, w65, z8k for COFF and aout targets.
>
>BFD is used for all COFF targets, even those which do not use
>BFD_ASSEMBLER (such targets define BFD_HEADERS).  There are some aout
>targets which do not use BFD at all.  I do not know whether any of
>these are in common use.
>
>
Hmm, they mostly seem ancient. Has there been any program of
obsoleting unused configs, or do people actually test that all
of these still work? Non-BFD would seem hard to make work as a
cross for instance.

Every time I see #ifdef BFD_ASSEMBLER, I get a gigantic urge
to drop everything else and hack it out.

>>* Is the bignum code actually needed? 64-bit values seem to depend
>>on 64-bit BFD and do 64-bit arithmetic, so I don't see how bignum
>>code would ever need to kick in.
>>
>
>The bignum code is not limited to 64-bit values.  For example, it is
>used to support the .octa pseudo-op.
>
Ah.

Stan