Re: NetBSD-6 firefox requires gcc 4.6, why not build 4.8?

[Jonathan Perkin <jperkin%joyent.com@localhost>]

* On 2014-10-22 at 11:48 PDT, David Brownlee wrote:

> In order to build firefox on netbsd-6 gcc 4.6 or later is required.
> 
> Currently gcc 4.6 does not build on netbsd-6
> 
> /var/obj/pkg/lang/gcc46/work/gcc-4.6.4/libiberty/alloca.c: In function
> 'C_alloca':
> /var/obj/pkg/lang/gcc46/work/gcc-4.6.4/libiberty/alloca.c:200:5:
> warning: implicit declaration of function 'XNEWVEC'
> [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
> /var/obj/pkg/lang/gcc46/work/gcc-4.6.4/libiberty/alloca.c:200:43:
> error: expected expression before 'char'
> Makefile:504: recipe for target 'alloca.o' failed
> 
> However, that does raise an interesting point - if an application
> requires a version of gcc newer than that shipped with a given system,
> why not default to building the highest supported gcc version, rather
> than the lowest?
> 
> If I'm going to have to build a gcc on netbsd-6, it probably makes
> more sense to build 4.8 rather than 4.6, on the grounds that something
> else I build later might need 4.8, and one would hope 4.8 would be
> generating at least a good code as 4.6...
> 
> What do people think?

There are a few things in gcc.mk we need to cleanup, so it may make
sense to add support for this at the same time - it seems reasonable
as something we should support, a GCC_REQD_DEFAULT user var which is
unset by default or something.

-- 
Jonathan Perkin  -  Joyent, Inc.  -  www.joyent.com