Re: Linux to MacOSX port effort.

[schristley]

On Thursday, April 25, 2002, at 09:42 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

> > > > > > "SC" == Scott Christley <address@hidden> writes:
>
> SC> I've been using the stock cc and have been able to compile the
> SC> misc directory and part of defobj so far.  Is there a specific
> SC> reason why the new gcc needs to be used?
>
> The parts of defobj you can't compile are likely the parts that use
> nested functions.  The Apple GCC 3.1 branch handles a simple case like
> this now:

aye, I've disabled hdf5 support at the moment which is where most of 
that syntax is used.

> I would be concerned that compile-time flags and configuration data
> would be wrong if the autoconf tests were not done.  It seems like the
> easiest way to identify the right configuration details would be to
> get the normal build working, and then repackage the details for
> ProjectBuilder.

I've run configure and make headers at least, to get the *.xm, classes.h 
and types.h files.  I did have to modify the Makefile so the 
preprocessor didn't munge the files.

> SC> The other issue are the two objc runtimes; I'm not sure how
> SC> practical using the GNU runtime will be on OSX except for a purely
> SC> X approach.  I'm still getting familiar with the guts of Swarm
> SC> source code so that I can add code to use Apple's runtime.
>
> It isn't possible to use the NeXT-like runtime with Swarm.  There are
> enhancements added to the (GNU) libobjc included with Swarm that handle
> the assembly and disassembly of method call frames.

I believe you are referring to the mframe source code; I recognize it 
from gnustep-base, it was the basis for distribute objects.  OSX has a 
working DO system, so it is just a matter of hooking the method calls to 
NSInvocation.  From reading the source code, I should be able to 
interact with the FCall and FArgument classes, I need to understand 
where the entry points are.

By the way, kudos to Marcus and the other developers, the code really is 
nicely structured; it has been relatively easy to port.  I've a project 
now that compiles and links completely, but crashes right after the 
modules are initialized.  I've left out the gui classes, but I should be 
able to do a batch run once i get that far.  There is quite a bit of 
important code that I have commented out, so it will take some coding 
before the program actually works.

The areas that need work include objc class methods, type encoding, and 
variable args; all of these exist on OSX but the api's are different 
from GNU.

cheers
Scott


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