Home Original page

Does gdb/configure ignore --with-gmp?

Stephen Casner casner@acm.org
Wed Feb 3 20:38:25 GMT 2021 
On Wed, 3 Feb 2021, Joel Sherrill wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2021 at 1:50 AM Stephen Casner <casner@acm.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, 3 Feb 2021, Joel Brobecker wrote:
> > > The correct option is the following:
> > >
> > > `--with-libgmp-prefix=DIR'
> > >      Build GDB using the GMP library installed at the directory DIR.
> > >      If your host does not have GMP installed, you can get the latest
> > >      version at `https://gmplib.org/'.
> > >
> > > (it's documented in gdb/README, if you are looking for it)
> >
> > Thank you for the prompt reply.  That option is not listed by the
> > top-level configure -h which has only this to say about gmp:
> >
> >   --with-gmp-dir=PATH     this option has been REMOVED
> >   --with-gmp=PATH         specify prefix directory for the installed GMP
> >                           package. Equivalent to
> >                           --with-gmp-include=PATH/include plus
> >                           --with-gmp-lib=PATH/lib
> >   --with-gmp-include=PATH specify directory for installed GMP include files
> >   --with-gmp-lib=PATH     specify directory for the installed GMP library
> >
> > Is that a (minor) bug then?  Or is --with-gmp the proper form for gcc?
>
> I'll pile on to this one. I did manage to find the right option in
> gdb/configure after some digging into the error message. I don't
> think anyone not willing to dig would find it at all. Not being in
> sync with the top level configure help is quite confusing.

Thanks for concurring.

> Also why can't it use gmp from source if it is in the source tree
> like GCC?

As I've stuggled to build GCC and libraries for pdp11 I've found web
pages suggesting to pile everything into one tree even though that
does not seem obvious.  I did not see the same for binutils.

> Overall, this is very unlike how GCC handles this one and awkward.

Would it be reasonable to change the top-level configure to transfer
--with-libgmp-prefix to gdb/configure if --with-gmp is provided to the
top-level?  I think both have the same semantics.  That would avoid
the need to introduce another potentially confusing entry in the
top-level help.

I know that the top-level configure.ac is shared by GCC, binutils and
gdb and therefore changes require agreement from multiple fora.

                                                        -- Steve
More information about the Binutils mailing list