[Aldor-l] Portability

[pip88nl at gmail.com]

Hi,

I am currently building the autoconf checks and thinking about a few
portability issues. I don't know how important each of them is anymore.
Here is a list of #ifdefs which I am unsure about:

  CC_no_void_pointer: Are there any compilers that don't support void*
    anymore?
  CC_noncanonical_pointer: Does anybody still use segmented
    architectures? (8086, anyone?)
  CC_no_token_paste: Are there any preprocessors that don't support the
    token paste operator (##)?
  CC_no_empty_file: Were there ever compilers that *error* on empty
    files? If yes, are there any left?
  CC_short_pointer: Does anybody still use MSDOS?

Another question is whether these questions are actually relevant. Should
I just go for maximum portability and try being compatible with every
system in the world? I think not. I think it's better to concentrate on
current platforms. As far as I am aware of, Aldor does not run on FreeBSD
6 and OpenSolaris. I have direct access to a NetBSD machine at home and I
am planning to install OpenSolaris in a virtual machine. Windows is
already in my virtual machine. I work on debian etch. I have remote
access to a VMS system (which I don't understand.. I can't handle VMS)
and a FreeBSD 6.2 system.

Systems:
  FreeBSD 6.2 (i386/amd64), NetBSD 4.0 (i386/amd64),
  OpenSolaris 2008 (i386/amd64), Linux 2.6 (i386/amd64),
  Windows XP 2600 (i386)
  
Compilers:
  GCC 3.4 (i386/amd64), GCC 4.1 (i386/amd64), MSVC 9 (i386),
  ICC (i386/amd64)

In addition to that, I have access to:
  HP OpenVMS 8.3 (ia64), HP HP-UX 11 (ia64/hppa)


That makes up for a few combinations. Theoretically, I could use dosbox
on Linux and port aldor to that. The question is whether that is desired.
Of course it is "cool" to be very portable, but it is also very uncool to
be nonportable to FreeBSD.

What other combinations can people offer for testing and what
combinations are interesting? I want to make a list of systems that work
and systems that we want to have working.

Pippijn
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