[9fans] some pcc questions

[Jens Staal <staal1978@gmail.com>]

Hi all

I have some problems that I sometimes run into while trying to port
stuff. One is that some files just "freezes" the compilation process
(but load goes down to 0 so it is not just labour intensive, but
rather that it just "sticks" there without doing anything) and when I
exit the compilation (by pressing "delete") I get different error
messages every time.

Is there a way to track down what is really happening in those cases
in order to solve them?


The second issue that I have been meaning to ask the list is about pcc
and bitfields - are they supported or is this some sort of can of
worms I have stepped into?

Here I have a more specific issue with compiling GNU m4: Compiling the
gnulib and all other files except src/builtin.c works fine with APE
libs and pcc, but builtin.c fails due to bitfields.
At the other side of the spectrum, a modern GNU m4 (including
src/builtin.c) can be compiled with the old GCC port, but there the
GCC-ported APE-libs are too old (vsnprintf etc not supported), so it
fails at the final linking phase since lots of stuff are not provided
by the C library.

Personally, I would prefer to crack that particular nut with pcc than
to go for an updated APE libs port to GCC so if there are specific
changes that can be done to bitfields in order to get it working, it
would be very interesting to hear about them...

some more details on why I even would bother doing such a thing:
http://code.google.com/p/ports2plan9/wiki/GNUonPlan9