GCC 4.0 and newlib for ARM

[Fernando Ramos]

Hi,

I have build the GNU GCC toolchain 4.0.0 for the xscale-elf target. Everything seems to be alright
except when I try to build my old programs with the new toolset.
I get the following errors from the linker:

xscale-elf-ld: ERROR: /cygdrive/c/gcc4/lib/gcc/xscale-elf/4.0.0/libgcc.a(_pack_sf.o) uses VFP
instructions, whereas o/ClockDemo.elf does not
xscale-elf-ld: failed to merge target specific data of file
/cygdrive/c/gcc4/lib/gcc/xscale-elf/4.0.0/libgcc.a(_pack_sf.o)

the error happens for .o modules in libc.a ang libgcc.a.

The VFP instruction set is meant to be used when your hardware has a math coprocessor, which mine
does not have. The previous toolset I was using (3.3.1) did not use VFP instructions.  I have tried
configuring newlib using --disable-newlib_hw_fp to no avail. Should I reconfigure,rebuild the
compiler with the same switch?
Is this some kind on new math support included for ARM processors?

Looking around in the configure files it seems that --disable-new-lib_hw_fp affects the #define
INTEGER_ONLY for newlib. Is this what I should be looking for?

Fernando Ramos
Senior Software Engineer
Hypercom Corp.