llvm dev - Sep 2009 - [LLVMdev] Status of blocks runtime in compiler-rt?

Hi folks,

So, various folks are in the process of porting Grand Central Dispatch  
to FreeBSD (c.f. http://libdispatch.macosforge.org and
http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/libdispatch-dev
  for mailing list discussion on the topic) and are making good  
progress, but one of the issues they're running into is support for  
Blocks in FreeBSD.

On the one hand, they could try and back-port the gcc changes from
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gcc/gcc-5646
  and solve the problem that way or, on the other hand, they could  
just continue FreeBSD's inexorable march towards Clang and get the  
blocks support as part of compiler-rt.  The only problem seems to be  
that the build support for Blocks in compiler-rt isn't wired up yet,  
which came as something of a surprise to all involved given that  
people have been talking about Clang and Blocks since this summer.

Is there a roadmap for this anywhere that we can read?  If this simply  
has not been done due to a lack of resources, the GCD porting folks  
could perhaps help move this along, assuming they had appropriate  
access to the bits.

Thanks!

- Jordan

Good day,

I been working on the CMake build system (which is nice and portable)
+ code clean ups over the whole Compiler-RT software suit.
I recently added Blocks to the CMake build system but there is some
ugly looking warnings I need to fix up in the Blocks code which I have
not had time to look into yet.
N.B. The CMake build system is not complete yet due to my lack of
time, however I am still active, help really welcome !

My main goal is to have Compiler-RT as a highly portable runtime that
will build and run on AuroraUX, *BSD, Linux and OSX with lint clean
code and zero build warnings. Also, I plan to add SPARC support in the
near future if I get time. (As I work on AuroraUX almost full time
also.)

These are my personal goals working on Compiler-RT.

Could you please outline *exactly* what you would like to see happen
with Blocks,
I don't really know much about Blocks to be fair however I would be
interested to hear and at least it would be 'on record' here.

Cheers,
Edward O'Callaghan.

2009/9/15 Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh at apple.com>:
> Hi folks,
>
> So, various folks are in the process of porting Grand Central Dispatch
> to FreeBSD (c.f. http://libdispatch.macosforge.org and
http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/libdispatch-dev
>  for mailing list discussion on the topic) and are making good
> progress, but one of the issues they're running into is support for
> Blocks in FreeBSD.
>
> On the one hand, they could try and back-port the gcc changes from
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gcc/gcc-5646
>  and solve the problem that way or, on the other hand, they could
> just continue FreeBSD's inexorable march towards Clang and get the
> blocks support as part of compiler-rt.  The only problem seems to be
> that the build support for Blocks in compiler-rt isn't wired up yet,
> which came as something of a surprise to all involved given that
> people have been talking about Clang and Blocks since this summer.
>
> Is there a roadmap for this anywhere that we can read?  If this simply
> has not been done due to a lack of resources, the GCD porting folks
> could perhaps help move this along, assuming they had appropriate
> access to the bits.
>
> Thanks!
>
> - Jordan
>
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
>


-- 
-- 
Edward O'Callaghan
http://www.auroraux.org/
eocallaghan at auroraux dot org

The Blocks language and implementation specifications are checked into  
clang/docs.

More generally, on Mac OS X, the blocks runtime is linked into the C  
library ("libSystem"), and available to the entire OS. Clients that  
create blocks may implicitly get compiler-generated calls to some of  
the runtime functions, and the developer may also make explicit calls  
to, e.g., Block_copy().

On other OSes, the library would need to be built and installed  
somewhere. There's also the question of whether it should be a shared  
library or static library. I can see both points, but think that a  
shared library is probably the right way for it.

It should probably be generally portable (it doesn't appear to  
compiler correctly with llvm-gcc and clang on Linux), and install its  
headers (doesn't appear to).

I can spend some time on this, since I have some familiarity with  
libdispatch (Apple's APIs that heavily use Blocks for developer  
convenience).

Shantonu

Sent from my MacBook

On Sep 15, 2009, at 4:42 PM, Edward O'Callaghan wrote:
> Good day,
>
> I been working on the CMake build system (which is nice and portable)
> + code clean ups over the whole Compiler-RT software suit.
> I recently added Blocks to the CMake build system but there is some
> ugly looking warnings I need to fix up in the Blocks code which I have
> not had time to look into yet.
> N.B. The CMake build system is not complete yet due to my lack of
> time, however I am still active, help really welcome !
>
> My main goal is to have Compiler-RT as a highly portable runtime that
> will build and run on AuroraUX, *BSD, Linux and OSX with lint clean
> code and zero build warnings. Also, I plan to add SPARC support in the
> near future if I get time. (As I work on AuroraUX almost full time
> also.)
>
> These are my personal goals working on Compiler-RT.
>
> Could you please outline *exactly* what you would like to see happen
> with Blocks,
> I don't really know much about Blocks to be fair however I would be
> interested to hear and at least it would be 'on record' here.
>
> Cheers,
> Edward O'Callaghan.
>
> 2009/9/15 Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh at apple.com>:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> So, various folks are in the process of porting Grand Central  
>> Dispatch
>> to FreeBSD (c.f. http://libdispatch.macosforge.org and
http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/libdispatch-dev
>>  for mailing list discussion on the topic) and are making good
>> progress, but one of the issues they're running into is support for
>> Blocks in FreeBSD.
>>
>> On the one hand, they could try and back-port the gcc changes from
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gcc/gcc-5646
>>  and solve the problem that way or, on the other hand, they could
>> just continue FreeBSD's inexorable march towards Clang and get the
>> blocks support as part of compiler-rt.  The only problem seems to be
>> that the build support for Blocks in compiler-rt isn't wired up
yet,
>> which came as something of a surprise to all involved given that
>> people have been talking about Clang and Blocks since this summer.
>>
>> Is there a roadmap for this anywhere that we can read?  If this  
>> simply
>> has not been done due to a lack of resources, the GCD porting folks
>> could perhaps help move this along, assuming they had appropriate
>> access to the bits.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> - Jordan
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> -- 
> Edward O'Callaghan
> http://www.auroraux.org/
> eocallaghan at auroraux dot org
>
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev