From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 23 11:53:53 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4315E16A4B3; Tue, 23 Sep 2003 11:53:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.webmaster.com (mail.webmaster.com [216.152.64.131]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 62E1843FCB; Tue, 23 Sep 2003 11:53:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from davids@webmaster.com) Received: from however ([206.171.168.138]) by shell.webmaster.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-12345L500S10000V35) with SMTP id com; Tue, 23 Sep 2003 11:50:53 -0700 From: "David Schwartz" To: Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 11:53:47 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Importance: Normal cc: Doug Barton cc: Freebsd Current Subject: RE: Fixing -pthreads (Re: ports and -current) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 18:53:53 -0000 > On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, David Schwartz wrote: > No. There are other environments that don't have -pthread > though. So now FreeBSD will support a flag that numerous other platforms support, however it will support it differently from every other platform. On every other platform I know of where '-pthread' does anything other than generate an error, it causes the compiler to conform to the pthreads standard. FreeBSD will be the only platform that knows what '-pthread' is but doesn't do the right thing when it gets it. Isn't it good to have one flag that, on every platform that supports it, gives you whatever's needed to get the default pthreads implementation to work? And isn't that what '-pthread' was supposed to be for? > Why do you want to shoehorn -pthread onto us when it is not > a good fit? Then don't support it. Return an error and nothing will break. However, I'd also suggest making it easy for people to set '-pthread' to give whatever pthreads library they think is the most sensible default for their installation. There is a push to make all platforms that support pthreads support '-pthread' to provide the needed compiler/linker goo to make pthreads work. This move is a slap in the face against that standardization effort. It means that configuration scripts will have to special case FreeBSD's current behavior. And in the future, if FreeBSD threading libraries start requiring compiler goo, they'll have to special case again. Another imcompatible definition for the same compiler flag is a slap in the face to the effort to standardize the meaning of the '-pthread' flag. This is, I realize, turning into a bikeshed. This is cut down from a much longer reply that I wrote while downloading email that made most of the other points I was going to make. DS