Re: [Gcl-devel] Windows random test results

[Mike Thomas]

Hi Camm.

Mike wrote:
> > At midnight I found another problem (again linker/optimisation I think)
> > mentioned in an earlier email this morning from my home address; which email
> > seems not to have gotten through to the GCL list.

Camm Maguire wrote:

> Details?  I think I've missed this.

The testers have been running on OFLAG = O2FLAGS = O3FLAGS = -O3 without 
incident for long periods now; the only (extremely) stable combination I 
have found.

When I add -fomit-frame-pointers to any or all of OFLAG, O2FLAGS or 
O3FLAGS, the ANSI test file "rt.o" hangs while loading.  Similar 
problems if I mix optimisations in those macros.

Setting OFLAG empty, O2FLAGS = -O and O3FLAGS = -O3, for example, 
invites disaster.  Compiling in -g as well as the optimisation settings 
causes a crash later in the test.  It seems that the real problem is in 
the linker.

So the C compiler optimisation story on Windows is this:

'Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the 
number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. 
Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that 
thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, 
being the third number, be reached, then, releasest thou thine stable 
GCL unto the world before thou findest more bugs and, of old age, thine 
clients snuff it.'

Speaking of bugs, the Starlisp simulator is a good test of ANSI 
compatibility which GCL fails miserably.

Cheers

Mike Thomas