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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Porting to New Hardware or Operating Systems</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL-NS Stylesheets V1.76.1"/><meta name="keywords" content=" ISO C++ , internals "/><meta name="keywords" content=" ISO C++ , library "/><link rel="home" href="../spine.html" title="The GNU C++ Library"/><link rel="up" href="appendix_porting.html" title="Appendix B. Porting and Maintenance"/><link rel="prev" href="documentation_hacking.html" title="Writing and Generating Documentation"/><link rel="next" href="test.html" title="Test"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Porting to New Hardware or Operating Systems</th></tr><tr><td align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="documentation_hacking.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Appendix B.
Porting and Maintenance
</th><td align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="test.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><div class="section" title="Porting to New Hardware or Operating Systems"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="appendix.porting.internals"/>Porting to New Hardware or Operating Systems</h2></div></div></div><p>
</p><p>This document explains how to port libstdc++ (the GNU C++ library) to
a new target.
</p><p>In order to make the GNU C++ library (libstdc++) work with a new
target, you must edit some configuration files and provide some new
header files. Unless this is done, libstdc++ will use generic
settings which may not be correct for your target; even if they are
correct, they will likely be inefficient.
</p><p>Before you get started, make sure that you have a working C library on
your target. The C library need not precisely comply with any
particular standard, but should generally conform to the requirements
imposed by the ANSI/ISO standard.
</p><p>In addition, you should try to verify that the C++ compiler generally
works. It is difficult to test the C++ compiler without a working
library, but you should at least try some minimal test cases.
</p><p>(Note that what we think of as a "target," the library refers to as
a "host." The comment at the top of <code class="code">configure.ac</code> explains why.)
</p><div class="section" title="Operating System"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="internals.os"/>Operating System</h3></div></div></div><p>If you are porting to a new operating system (as opposed to a new chip
using an existing operating system), you will need to create a new
directory in the <code class="code">config/os</code> hierarchy. For example, the IRIX
configuration files are all in <code class="code">config/os/irix</code>. There is no set
way to organize the OS configuration directory. For example,
<code class="code">config/os/solaris/solaris-2.6</code> and
<code class="code">config/os/solaris/solaris-2.7</code> are used as configuration
directories for these two versions of Solaris. On the other hand, both
Solaris 2.7 and Solaris 2.8 use the <code class="code">config/os/solaris/solaris-2.7</code>
directory. The important information is that there needs to be a
directory under <code class="code">config/os</code> to store the files for your operating
system.
</p><p>You might have to change the <code class="code">configure.host</code> file to ensure that
your new directory is activated. Look for the switch statement that sets
<code class="code">os_include_dir</code>, and add a pattern to handle your operating system
if the default will not suffice. The switch statement switches on only
the OS portion of the standard target triplet; e.g., the <code class="code">solaris2.8</code>
in <code class="code">sparc-sun-solaris2.8</code>. If the new directory is named after the
OS portion of the triplet (the default), then nothing needs to be changed.
</p><p>The first file to create in this directory, should be called
<code class="code">os_defines.h</code>. This file contains basic macro definitions
that are required to allow the C++ library to work with your C library.
</p><p>Several libstdc++ source files unconditionally define the macro
<code class="code">_POSIX_SOURCE</code>. On many systems, defining this macro causes
large portions of the C library header files to be eliminated
at preprocessing time. Therefore, you may have to <code class="code">#undef</code> this
macro, or define other macros (like <code class="code">_LARGEFILE_SOURCE</code> or
<code class="code">__EXTENSIONS__</code>). You won't know what macros to define or
undefine at this point; you'll have to try compiling the library and
seeing what goes wrong. If you see errors about calling functions
that have not been declared, look in your C library headers to see if
the functions are declared there, and then figure out what macros you
need to define. You will need to add them to the
<code class="code">CPLUSPLUS_CPP_SPEC</code> macro in the GCC configuration file for your
target. It will not work to simply define these macros in
<code class="code">os_defines.h</code>.
</p><p>At this time, there are a few libstdc++-specific macros which may be
defined:
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_CHECK</code> may be defined to 1 to check C99
function declarations (which are not covered by specialization below)
found in system headers against versions found in the library headers
derived from the standard.
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_DYNAMIC</code> may be defined to an expression that
yields 0 if and only if the system headers are exposing proper support
for C99 functions (which are not covered by specialization below). If
defined, it must be 0 while bootstrapping the compiler/rebuilding the
library.
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_LONG_LONG_CHECK</code> may be defined to 1 to check
the set of C99 long long function declarations found in system headers
against versions found in the library headers derived from the
standard.
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_LONG_LONG_DYNAMIC</code> may be defined to an
expression that yields 0 if and only if the system headers are
exposing proper support for the set of C99 long long functions. If
defined, it must be 0 while bootstrapping the compiler/rebuilding the
library.
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_FP_MACROS_DYNAMIC</code> may be defined to an
expression that yields 0 if and only if the system headers
are exposing proper support for the related set of macros. If defined,
it must be 0 while bootstrapping the compiler/rebuilding the library.
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_FLOAT_TRANSCENDENTALS_CHECK</code> may be defined
to 1 to check the related set of function declarations found in system
headers against versions found in the library headers derived from
the standard.
</p><p><code class="code">_GLIBCXX_USE_C99_FLOAT_TRANSCENDENTALS_DYNAMIC</code> may be defined
to an expression that yields 0 if and only if the system headers
are exposing proper support for the related set of functions. If defined,
it must be 0 while bootstrapping the compiler/rebuilding the library.
</p><p>Finally, you should bracket the entire file in an include-guard, like
this:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
#ifndef _GLIBCXX_OS_DEFINES
#define _GLIBCXX_OS_DEFINES
...
#endif
</pre><p>We recommend copying an existing <code class="code">os_defines.h</code> to use as a
starting point.
</p></div><div class="section" title="CPU"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="internals.cpu"/>CPU</h3></div></div></div><p>If you are porting to a new chip (as opposed to a new operating system
running on an existing chip), you will need to create a new directory in the
<code class="code">config/cpu</code> hierarchy. Much like the <a class="link" href="internals.html#internals.os" title="Operating System">Operating system</a> setup,
there are no strict rules on how to organize the CPU configuration
directory, but careful naming choices will allow the configury to find your
setup files without explicit help.
</p><p>We recommend that for a target triplet <code class="code"><CPU>-<vendor>-<OS></code>, you
name your configuration directory <code class="code">config/cpu/<CPU></code>. If you do this,
the configury will find the directory by itself. Otherwise you will need to
edit the <code class="code">configure.host</code> file and, in the switch statement that sets
<code class="code">cpu_include_dir</code>, add a pattern to handle your chip.
</p><p>Note that some chip families share a single configuration directory, for
example, <code class="code">alpha</code>, <code class="code">alphaev5</code>, and <code class="code">alphaev6</code> all use the
<code class="code">config/cpu/alpha</code> directory, and there is an entry in the
<code class="code">configure.host</code> switch statement to handle this.
</p><p>The <code class="code">cpu_include_dir</code> sets default locations for the files controlling
<a class="link" href="internals.html#internals.thread_safety" title="Thread Safety">Thread safety</a> and <a class="link" href="internals.html#internals.numeric_limits" title="Numeric Limits">Numeric limits</a>, if the defaults are not
appropriate for your chip.
</p></div><div class="section" title="Character Types"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="internals.char_types"/>Character Types</h3></div></div></div><p>The library requires that you provide three header files to implement
character classification, analogous to that provided by the C libraries
<code class="code"><ctype.h></code> header. You can model these on the files provided in
<code class="code">config/os/generic</code>. However, these files will almost
certainly need some modification.
</p><p>The first file to write is <code class="code">ctype_base.h</code>. This file provides
some very basic information about character classification. The libstdc++
library assumes that your C library implements <code class="code"><ctype.h></code> by using
a table (indexed by character code) containing integers, where each of
these integers is a bit-mask indicating whether the character is
upper-case, lower-case, alphabetic, etc. The <code class="code">ctype_base.h</code>
file gives the type of the integer, and the values of the various bit
masks. You will have to peer at your own <code class="code"><ctype.h></code> to figure out
how to define the values required by this file.
</p><p>The <code class="code">ctype_base.h</code> header file does not need include guards.
It should contain a single <code class="code">struct</code> definition called
<code class="code">ctype_base</code>. This <code class="code">struct</code> should contain two type
declarations, and one enumeration declaration, like this example, taken
from the IRIX configuration:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
struct ctype_base
{
typedef unsigned int mask;
typedef int* __to_type;
enum
{
space = _ISspace,
print = _ISprint,
cntrl = _IScntrl,
upper = _ISupper,
lower = _ISlower,
alpha = _ISalpha,
digit = _ISdigit,
punct = _ISpunct,
xdigit = _ISxdigit,
alnum = _ISalnum,
graph = _ISgraph
};
};
</pre><p>The <code class="code">mask</code> type is the type of the elements in the table. If your
C library uses a table to map lower-case numbers to upper-case numbers,
and vice versa, you should define <code class="code">__to_type</code> to be the type of the
elements in that table. If you don't mind taking a minor performance
penalty, or if your library doesn't implement <code class="code">toupper</code> and
<code class="code">tolower</code> in this way, you can pick any pointer-to-integer type,
but you must still define the type.
</p><p>The enumeration should give definitions for all the values in the above
example, using the values from your native <code class="code"><ctype.h></code>. They can
be given symbolically (as above), or numerically, if you prefer. You do
not have to include <code class="code"><ctype.h></code> in this header; it will always be
included before <code class="code">ctype_base.h</code> is included.
</p><p>The next file to write is <code class="code">ctype_noninline.h</code>, which also does
not require include guards. This file defines a few member functions
that will be included in <code class="code">include/bits/locale_facets.h</code>. The first
function that must be written is the <code class="code">ctype<char>::ctype</code>
constructor. Here is the IRIX example:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
ctype<char>::ctype(const mask* __table = 0, bool __del = false,
size_t __refs = 0)
: _Ctype_nois<char>(__refs), _M_del(__table != 0 && __del),
_M_toupper(NULL),
_M_tolower(NULL),
_M_ctable(NULL),
_M_table(!__table
? (const mask*) (__libc_attr._ctype_tbl->_class + 1)
: __table)
{ }
</pre><p>There are two parts of this that you might choose to alter. The first,
and most important, is the line involving <code class="code">__libc_attr</code>. That is
IRIX system-dependent code that gets the base of the table mapping
character codes to attributes. You need to substitute code that obtains
the address of this table on your system. If you want to use your
operating system's tables to map upper-case letters to lower-case, and
vice versa, you should initialize <code class="code">_M_toupper</code> and
<code class="code">_M_tolower</code> with those tables, in similar fashion.
</p><p>Now, you have to write two functions to convert from upper-case to
lower-case, and vice versa. Here are the IRIX versions:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
char
ctype<char>::do_toupper(char __c) const
{ return _toupper(__c); }
char
ctype<char>::do_tolower(char __c) const
{ return _tolower(__c); }
</pre><p>Your C library provides equivalents to IRIX's <code class="code">_toupper</code> and
<code class="code">_tolower</code>. If you initialized <code class="code">_M_toupper</code> and
<code class="code">_M_tolower</code> above, then you could use those tables instead.
</p><p>Finally, you have to provide two utility functions that convert strings
of characters. The versions provided here will always work - but you
could use specialized routines for greater performance if you have
machinery to do that on your system:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
const char*
ctype<char>::do_toupper(char* __low, const char* __high) const
{
while (__low < __high)
{
*__low = do_toupper(*__low);
++__low;
}
return __high;
}
const char*
ctype<char>::do_tolower(char* __low, const char* __high) const
{
while (__low < __high)
{
*__low = do_tolower(*__low);
++__low;
}
return __high;
}
</pre><p>You must also provide the <code class="code">ctype_inline.h</code> file, which
contains a few more functions. On most systems, you can just copy
<code class="code">config/os/generic/ctype_inline.h</code> and use it on your system.
</p><p>In detail, the functions provided test characters for particular
properties; they are analogous to the functions like <code class="code">isalpha</code> and
<code class="code">islower</code> provided by the C library.
</p><p>The first function is implemented like this on IRIX:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
bool
ctype<char>::
is(mask __m, char __c) const throw()
{ return (_M_table)[(unsigned char)(__c)] & __m; }
</pre><p>The <code class="code">_M_table</code> is the table passed in above, in the constructor.
This is the table that contains the bitmasks for each character. The
implementation here should work on all systems.
</p><p>The next function is:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
const char*
ctype<char>::
is(const char* __low, const char* __high, mask* __vec) const throw()
{
while (__low < __high)
*__vec++ = (_M_table)[(unsigned char)(*__low++)];
return __high;
}
</pre><p>This function is similar; it copies the masks for all the characters
from <code class="code">__low</code> up until <code class="code">__high</code> into the vector given by
<code class="code">__vec</code>.
</p><p>The last two functions again are entirely generic:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
const char*
ctype<char>::
scan_is(mask __m, const char* __low, const char* __high) const throw()
{
while (__low < __high && !this->is(__m, *__low))
++__low;
return __low;
}
const char*
ctype<char>::
scan_not(mask __m, const char* __low, const char* __high) const throw()
{
while (__low < __high && this->is(__m, *__low))
++__low;
return __low;
}
</pre></div><div class="section" title="Thread Safety"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="internals.thread_safety"/>Thread Safety</h3></div></div></div><p>The C++ library string functionality requires a couple of atomic
operations to provide thread-safety. If you don't take any special
action, the library will use stub versions of these functions that are
not thread-safe. They will work fine, unless your applications are
multi-threaded.
</p><p>If you want to provide custom, safe, versions of these functions, there
are two distinct approaches. One is to provide a version for your CPU,
using assembly language constructs. The other is to use the
thread-safety primitives in your operating system. In either case, you
make a file called <code class="code">atomicity.h</code>, and the variable
<code class="code">ATOMICITYH</code> must point to this file.
</p><p>If you are using the assembly-language approach, put this code in
<code class="code">config/cpu/<chip>/atomicity.h</code>, where chip is the name of
your processor (see <a class="link" href="internals.html#internals.cpu" title="CPU">CPU</a>). No additional changes are necessary to
locate the file in this case; <code class="code">ATOMICITYH</code> will be set by default.
</p><p>If you are using the operating system thread-safety primitives approach,
you can also put this code in the same CPU directory, in which case no more
work is needed to locate the file. For examples of this approach,
see the <code class="code">atomicity.h</code> file for IRIX or IA64.
</p><p>Alternatively, if the primitives are more closely related to the OS
than they are to the CPU, you can put the <code class="code">atomicity.h</code> file in
the <a class="link" href="internals.html#internals.os" title="Operating System">Operating system</a> directory instead. In this case, you must
edit <code class="code">configure.host</code>, and in the switch statement that handles
operating systems, override the <code class="code">ATOMICITYH</code> variable to point to
the appropriate <code class="code">os_include_dir</code>. For examples of this approach,
see the <code class="code">atomicity.h</code> file for AIX.
</p><p>With those bits out of the way, you have to actually write
<code class="code">atomicity.h</code> itself. This file should be wrapped in an
include guard named <code class="code">_GLIBCXX_ATOMICITY_H</code>. It should define one
type, and two functions.
</p><p>The type is <code class="code">_Atomic_word</code>. Here is the version used on IRIX:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
typedef long _Atomic_word;
</pre><p>This type must be a signed integral type supporting atomic operations.
If you're using the OS approach, use the same type used by your system's
primitives. Otherwise, use the type for which your CPU provides atomic
primitives.
</p><p>Then, you must provide two functions. The bodies of these functions
must be equivalent to those provided here, but using atomic operations:
</p><pre class="programlisting">
static inline _Atomic_word
__attribute__ ((__unused__))
__exchange_and_add (_Atomic_word* __mem, int __val)
{
_Atomic_word __result = *__mem;
*__mem += __val;
return __result;
}
static inline void
__attribute__ ((__unused__))
__atomic_add (_Atomic_word* __mem, int __val)
{
*__mem += __val;
}
</pre></div><div class="section" title="Numeric Limits"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="internals.numeric_limits"/>Numeric Limits</h3></div></div></div><p>The C++ library requires information about the fundamental data types,
such as the minimum and maximum representable values of each type.
You can define each of these values individually, but it is usually
easiest just to indicate how many bits are used in each of the data
types and let the library do the rest. For information about the
macros to define, see the top of <code class="code">include/bits/std_limits.h</code>.
</p><p>If you need to define any macros, you can do so in <code class="code">os_defines.h</code>.
However, if all operating systems for your CPU are likely to use the
same values, you can provide a CPU-specific file instead so that you
do not have to provide the same definitions for each operating system.
To take that approach, create a new file called <code class="code">cpu_limits.h</code> in
your CPU configuration directory (see <a class="link" href="internals.html#internals.cpu" title="CPU">CPU</a>).
</p></div><div class="section" title="Libtool"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="internals.libtool"/>Libtool</h3></div></div></div><p>The C++ library is compiled, archived and linked with libtool.
Explaining the full workings of libtool is beyond the scope of this
document, but there are a few, particular bits that are necessary for
porting.
</p><p>Some parts of the libstdc++ library are compiled with the libtool
<code class="code">--tags CXX</code> option (the C++ definitions for libtool). Therefore,
<code class="code">ltcf-cxx.sh</code> in the top-level directory needs to have the correct
logic to compile and archive objects equivalent to the C version of libtool,
<code class="code">ltcf-c.sh</code>. Some libtool targets have definitions for C but not
for C++, or C++ definitions which have not been kept up to date.
</p><p>The C++ run-time library contains initialization code that needs to be
run as the library is loaded. Often, that requires linking in special
object files when the C++ library is built as a shared library, or
taking other system-specific actions.
</p><p>The libstdc++ library is linked with the C version of libtool, even
though it is a C++ library. Therefore, the C version of libtool needs to
ensure that the run-time library initializers are run. The usual way to
do this is to build the library using <code class="code">gcc -shared</code>.
</p><p>If you need to change how the library is linked, look at
<code class="code">ltcf-c.sh</code> in the top-level directory. Find the switch statement
that sets <code class="code">archive_cmds</code>. Here, adjust the setting for your
operating system.
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