[Ecls-list] OpenSolaris issue : Error: suffix or operands invalid for `mov'

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On 06/18/10 01:41 PM, Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll wrote:
> Use of the dynamic foreign function interface is discouraged unless you have
> libffi around. Use --without-dffi or install the previously mentioned
> library in a place where ECL's configuration program can find it.
>
> I am not going to fix that assembler code or make it support other compilers
> because libffi is a perfectly fine and well supported tool, while our code
> is more like a hack.
>
> Juanjo
>

Is this dynamic foreign function interface needed for Maxima? Would you advise 
us to disable this on all platforms, or just OpenSolaris, given we do not have 
libffi in Sage?

Obviously, I could disable this on just OpenSolaris, but that seems a bit silly 
if you would generally discourage it.

If you would advise disabling this unless libffi is installed, would it not be 
preferable for the default behaviour of whether to install the dffi depends on 
whether the relevant library is installed? In other words, would it not be 
preferable for the configure script to check for this library before enabling 
the dynamic foreign function interface?

Dave