IRIX6 experience

[Matthew C. Weigel]

On Sat, 27 May 2000, Damien Miller wrote:

> A couple of questions:
> 
> How does one tell which is in use? 

As I understand it, all three are available at any time.  I'm not sure,
though, since the code *I* write on SGI's is generally Java.

> What CFLAGS need to be present to select an ABI? (-32/-64?)

-o32 or -32, -n32, and -64.  o32 is probably the right one to use for
binaries distributed from an FTP site.

> I presume that you cannot link an o32 binary against a n32, etc.

>From abi(5) on an IRIX system: 

     IRIX supports three ABIs:

     o32  The old 32-bit ABI which was standard on IRIX 5 systems.

     n64  The 64-bit ABI which was introduced on IRIX 6.0 systems.

     n32  The new high performance 32-bit ABI which was introduced on IRIX
          6.2.

     Each of these ABIs defines unique interfaces which make it impossible
     to link object files of one ABI with object files of another ABI.

The man page is a little out of date, since it refers to the R8000 as the
only processor that supports 64-bit ABI (and specifically, mips3 and 4
arch's).  -o32 seems to support more, since on the O2 I'm screwing around
with this on, -32 and -n32 produce code it can run, but -64 produces code it
can't run.  I'm not sure if there's extra work that I need to be doing,
though.

 Matthew Weigel
 Programmer/Sysadmin/Student
 weigel+ at pitt.edu