Re: [PORTS] RedHat6.0 & Alpha

> Well, a reply, anyway
>
> 1) reltime & abstime values are stored in the DB as 4 byte values. The
> definitions for abstime&reltime are also stored in the DB ( this from empiracle
> debugging ) .  If you do not plan to embrace the  notion of #of seconds >
> 2^(32-1), and you dont want to alter the DB notion that storage is 4 bytes then
>
>     typedef int32 Absolutetime;
>     typedef int32 Relativetime;
>
>     would appear to be most preferable & more stable (majic #'s work ) than
>
>     typedef time_t    Absolutetime;
>     typedef time_t    Relativetime;
>
>     This is not a complete solution , as there are still some sign extension
> problems as demonstratable by the regression tests.
>     If you want to use 64bit Absolutetime & reltimes, then you should adjust (
> or make more abstract ) the concept of abstime&reltime. BUT
> THIS IS NOT A PORTING ISSUE! I would just like to get the abstime*reltime to
> behave much like the 32bit folks.

Makes sense.  Using time_t does not make sense if we are forcing
everything to 4 bytes.

>
> 2) Can u add HAS_LONG_LONG to $(CFLAGS)
>     I dont have long long, but it turns on  some code ( somewhere ) that fixes
> another problem.

Check configure. It runs a test to see if long long works, and sets that
in include/config.h.

>
> 3) -mieee informs the egcs compiler fot the alpha to inject 'trapb'
> instructions at various places in a floating point computation. The trapb is a
> pipeline stall forcing the processor to stop issueing instructions until all
> current instructions in the pipeline have executed. This is done to capture a
> possible 'fault' at a resomable time so you can backtrack to the instruction
> that faulted  and take some corrective measure.  There are also rules for
> backtracing, and repairing. The usage of -mieee inserted these trapb's all over
> the place. The current egcs compiler appears to do a better job at it For
> purely int operations, then a module need not be enhanced by the -mieee switch.

I am stumped on why we even need -mieee, but someone supplied a patch to
add it.

>
> 4) I'd give u some patches, but still getting the regression tests to work.
> Where do I get 6.5.1, so I can work with that as a base

Go to ftp.postgresql.org, and get the "snapshot".  That will be 6.5.1 on
July 19th.

> 5) What is the floating point rounding set to ( up/down ). There seems to be an
> extra digit of precision in ur i386, where the alpha port appears to round up (
> and have 1 digit less :(  )

Not sure where that is set.  Would be fpsetround() on BSD/OS, however, I
don't see us setting it anywhere, so my guess is that we are using the
OS default for this.

--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
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