[Ecls-list] Cross compiling

[Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll]

gregory.menke at gsfc.nasa.gov wrote:
> 
> I was wondering if anyone on the list might have hints or ideas of how
> feasible converting the ECLS make system into a single target cross
> compilation scheme.  I have the cross-compiled C/C++ compiler w/
> binutils working, and Newlib for the C/C++ library.

It is not easy for one reason: during the configuration process, a few
programs are compiled which give information about
	- largest integer type that fits into a pointer
	- whether one can access va_list() as if it were an array
	- existence of functions and headers

Furthermore, the build process relies on a working ecl_min image to
compile the beast. The solution would consist on

1) fixing aclocal.in and configure.in so that these checks can be
overriden with settings in src/h/machines.h. The configure.in file
should also unset USE_DLOPEN.

2) making sure that configure.in passes the right arguments to the
configuration process in src/gmp and in src/gc (The Boehm collector's
configuration process is the most immature of both and I do not know
whether this architecture is supported -- you can always resort to
--disable-boehm)

3) in src/Makefile.in one should add the possiblity of building the new
image using an existing ECL image. This would also imply changes in
compile.lsp, as it should
	a) not load "bare.lsp"
	b) load "cmp/config.lsp" which contains the settings for gcc

I think that is all. I do not mean that it is easy, but I think it is
not impossible. However, how would one debug the final image, in case it
does not work?

Juanjo