Re: [PATCH v2] Enable GDB build with in-tree GMP and MPFR

Joel Brobecker
2021-01-11T03:22:10Z

> > But I prefer having none of them, and just having a built mpfr/gmp
> > be a prerequisite step to building GDB.
>
> Hmm, I see, but it was argued previously on this list, that it is okay
> for GDB to have a mandatory dependency to GMP because GCC has the same
> dependency.

I think it was to show that this extra dependency wasn't going to
introduce an unreasonable burden on the developers of some specific
platform. Other that that, I wasn't trying to "follow" GCC.

> However GCC offers exactly the same convenience as it allows GMP
> to be optionally built in-tree.

I wouldn't object to that convenience, but I'm in the same camp as
Simon on that one. I know that this convenience is easier, and
I used to take advantage of something like that for e.g. libiconv;
but I soon realized that I kept rebuilding the same thing over and over
every time I rebuilt everything from scratch. In the end, it took a tiny
bit of effort to build and install that library once, and that was it,
I used that same library build until I had to switch to a different
machine. Maybe those libraries aren't big enough to make that much of
a difference (I haven't checked), but I found in the end that I didn't
really miss the convenience.

Another option if you are on GNU/Linux is to install the system version
together with the corresponding "devel" package. I assume it's not
something that works for you?

--
Joel