aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/gc/doc/README.amiga
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'gc/doc/README.amiga')
-rw-r--r--gc/doc/README.amiga322
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 322 deletions
diff --git a/gc/doc/README.amiga b/gc/doc/README.amiga
deleted file mode 100644
index 730dce3..0000000
--- a/gc/doc/README.amiga
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,322 +0,0 @@
-===========================================================================
- Kjetil S. Matheussen's notes (28-11-2000)
-===========================================================================
-Compiles under SAS/C again. Should allso still compile under other
-amiga compilers without big changes. I haven't checked if it still
-works under gcc, because I don't have gcc for amiga. But I have
-updated 'Makefile', and hope it compiles fine.
-
-
-WHATS NEW:
-
-1.
- Made a pretty big effort in preventing GCs allocating-functions from returning
- chip-mem.
-
- The lower part of the new file AmigaOS.c does this in various ways, mainly by
- wrapping GC_malloc, GC_malloc_atomic, GC_malloc_uncollectable,
- GC_malloc_atomic_uncollectable, GC_malloc_stubborn, GC_malloc_ignore_off_page
- and GC_malloc_atomic_ignore_off_page. GC_realloc is allso wrapped, but
- doesn't do the same effort in preventing to return chip-mem.
- Other allocating-functions (f.ex. GC_*_typed_) can probably be
- used without any problems, but beware that the warn hook will not be called.
- In case of problems, don't define GC_AMIGA_FASTALLOC.
-
- Programs using more time actually using the memory allocated
- (instead of just allocate and free rapidly) have
- the most to earn on this, but even gctest now normally runs twice
- as fast and uses less memory, on my poor 8MB machine.
-
- The changes have only effect when there is no more
- fast-mem left. But with the way GC works, it
- could happen quite often. Beware that an atexit handler had to be added,
- so using the abort() function will make a big memory-loss.
- If you absolutely must call abort() instead of exit(), try calling
- the GC_amiga_free_all_mem function before abort().
-
- New amiga-spesific compilation flags:
-
- GC_AMIGA_FASTALLOC - By NOT defining this option, GC will work like before,
- it will not try to force fast-mem out of the OS, and
- it will use normal calloc for allocation, and the rest
- of the following flags will have no effect.
-
- GC_AMIGA_ONLYFAST - Makes GC never to return chip-mem. GC_AMIGA_RETRY have
- no effect if this flag is set.
-
- GC_AMIGA_GC - If gc returns NULL, do a GC_gcollect, and try again. This
- usually is a success with the standard GC configuration.
- It is allso the most important flag to set to prevent
- GC from returning chip-mem. Beware that it slows down a lot
- when a program is rapidly allocating/deallocating when
- theres either very little fast-memory left or verly little
- chip-memory left. Its not a very common situation, but gctest
- sometimes (very rare) use many minutes because of this.
-
- GC_AMIGA_RETRY - If gc succeed allocating memory, but it is chip-mem,
- try again and see if it is fast-mem. Most of the time,
- it will actually return fast-mem for the second try.
- I have set max number of retries to 9 or size/5000. You
- can change this if you like. (see GC_amiga_rec_alloc())
-
- GC_AMIGA_PRINTSTATS - Gather some statistics during the execution of a
- program, and prints out the info when the atexit-handler
- is called.
-
- My reccomendation is to set all this flags, except GC_AMIGA_PRINTSTATS and
- GC_AMIGA_ONLYFAST.
-
- If your program demands high response-time, you should
- not define GC_AMIGA_GC, and possible allso define GC_AMIGA_ONLYFAST.
- GC_AMIGA_RETRY does not seem to slow down much.
-
- Allso, when compiling up programs, and GC_AMIGA_FASTALLOC was not defined when
- compilling gc, you can define GC_AMIGA_MAKINGLIB to avoid having these allocation-
- functions wrapped. (see gc.h)
-
- Note that GC_realloc must not be called before any of
- the other above mentioned allocating-functions have been called. (shouldn't be
- any programs doing so either, I hope).
-
- Another note. The allocation-function is wrapped when defining
- GC_AMIGA_FASTALLOC by letting the function go thru the new
- GC_amiga_allocwrapper_do function-pointer (see gc.h). Means that
- sending function-pointers, such as GC_malloc, GC_malloc_atomic, etc.,
- for later to be called like f.ex this, (*GC_malloc_functionpointer)(size),
- will not wrap the function. This is normally not a big problem, unless
- all allocation function is called like this, which will cause the
- atexit un-allocating function never to be called. Then you either
- have to manually add the atexit handler, or call the allocation-
- functions function-pointer functions like this;
- (*GC_amiga_allocwrapper_do)(size,GC_malloc_functionpointer).
- There are probably better ways this problem could be handled, unfortunately,
- I didn't find any without rewriting or replacing a lot of the GC-code, which
- I really didn't want to. (Making new GC_malloc_* functions, and just
- define f.ex GC_malloc as GC_amiga_malloc should allso work).
-
-
- New amiga-spesific function:
-
- void GC_amiga_set_toany(void (*func)(void));
-
- 'func' is a function that will be called right before gc has to change
- allocation-method from MEMF_FAST to MEMF_ANY. Ie. when it is likely
- it will return chip-mem.
-
-
-2. A few small compiler-spesific additions to make it compile with SAS/C again.
-
-3. Updated and rewritten the smakefile, so that it works again and that
- the "unnecesarry" 'SCOPTIONS' files could be removed. Allso included
- the cord-smakefile stuff in the main smakefile, so that the cord smakefile
- could be removed too. By writing smake -f Smakefile.smk, both gc.lib and
- cord.lib will be made.
-
-
-
-STILL MISSING:
-
-Programs can not be started from workbench, at least not for SAS/C. (Martin
-Tauchmanns note about that it now works with workbench is definitely wrong
-when concerning SAS/C). I guess it works if you use the old "#if 0'ed"-code,
-but I haven't tested it. I think the reason for MT to replace the
-"#if 0'ed"-code was only because it was a bit to SAS/C-spesific. But I
-don't know. An iconx-script solves this problem anyway.
-
-
-BEWARE!
-
--To run gctest, set the stack to around 200000 bytes first.
--SAS/C-spesific: cord will crash if you compile gc.lib with
- either parm=reg or parm=both. (missing legal prototypes for
- function-pointers someplace is the reason I guess.).
-
-
-tested with software: Radium, http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~ksvalast/radium/
-
-tested with hardware: MC68060
-
-
--ksvalast@ifi.uio.no
-
-
-===========================================================================
- Martin Tauchmann's notes (1-Apr-99)
-===========================================================================
-
-Works now, also with the GNU-C compiler V2.7.2.1. <ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/amiga/geekgadgets/amiga/m68k/snapshots/971125/amiga-bin/>
-Modify the `Makefile`
-CC=cc $(ABI_FLAG)
-to
-CC=gcc $(ABI_FLAG)
-
-TECHNICAL NOTES
-
-- `GC_get_stack_base()`, `GC_register_data_segments()` works now with every
- C compiler; also Workbench.
-
-- Removed AMIGA_SKIP_SEG, but the Code-Segment must not be scanned by GC.
-
-
-PROBLEMS
-- When the Linker, does`t merge all Code-Segments to an single one. LD of GCC
- do it always.
-
-- With ixemul.library V47.3, when an GC program launched from another program
- (example: `Make` or `if_mach M68K AMIGA gctest`), `GC_register_data_segments()`
- found the Segment-List of the caller program.
- Can be fixed, if the run-time initialization code (for C programs, usually *crt0*)
- support `__data` and `__bss`.
-
-- PowerPC Amiga currently not supported.
-
-- Dynamic libraries (dyn_load.c) not supported.
-
-
-TESTED WITH SOFTWARE
-
-`Optimized Oberon 2 C` (oo2c) <http://cognac.informatik.uni-kl.de/download/index.html>
-
-
-TESTED WITH HARDWARE
-
-MC68030
-
-
-CONTACT
-
-Please, contact me at <martintauchmann@bigfoot.com>, when you change the
-Amiga port. <http://martintauchmann.home.pages.de>
-
-===========================================================================
- Michel Schinz's notes
-===========================================================================
-WHO DID WHAT
-
-The original Amiga port was made by Jesper Peterson. I (Michel Schinz)
-modified it slightly to reflect the changes made in the new official
-distributions, and to take advantage of the new SAS/C 6.x features. I also
-created a makefile to compile the "cord" package (see the cord
-subdirectory).
-
-TECHNICAL NOTES
-
-In addition to Jesper's notes, I have the following to say:
-
-- Starting with version 4.3, gctest checks to see if the code segment is
- added to the root set or not, and complains if it is. Previous versions
- of this Amiga port added the code segment to the root set, so I tried to
- fix that. The only problem is that, as far as I know, it is impossible to
- know which segments are code segments and which are data segments (there
- are indeed solutions to this problem, like scanning the program on disk
- or patch the LoadSeg functions, but they are rather complicated). The
- solution I have chosen (see os_dep.c) is to test whether the program
- counter is in the segment we are about to add to the root set, and if it
- is, to skip the segment. The problems are that this solution is rather
- awkward and that it works only for one code segment. This means that if
- your program has more than one code segment, all of them but one will be
- added to the root set. This isn't a big problem in fact, since the
- collector will continue to work correctly, but it may be slower.
-
- Anyway, the code which decides whether to skip a segment or not can be
- removed simply by not defining AMIGA_SKIP_SEG. But notice that if you do
- so, gctest will complain (it will say that "GC_is_visible produced wrong
- failure indication"). However, it may be useful if you happen to have
- pointers stored in a code segment (you really shouldn't).
-
- If anyone has a good solution to the problem of finding, when a program
- is loaded in memory, whether a segment is a code or a data segment,
- please let me know.
-
-PROBLEMS
-
-If you have any problem with this version, please contact me at
-schinz@alphanet.ch (but do *not* send long files, since we pay for
-every mail!).
-
-===========================================================================
- Jesper Peterson's notes
-===========================================================================
-
-ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR AMIGA PORT
-
-These notes assume some familiarity with Amiga internals.
-
-WHY I PORTED TO THE AMIGA
-
-The sole reason why I made this port was as a first step in getting
-the Sather(*) language on the Amiga. A port of this language will
-be done as soon as the Sather 1.0 sources are made available to me.
-Given this motivation, the garbage collection (GC) port is rather
-minimal.
-
-(*) For information on Sather read the comp.lang.sather newsgroup.
-
-LIMITATIONS
-
-This port assumes that the startup code linked with target programs
-is that supplied with SAS/C versions 6.0 or later. This allows
-assumptions to be made about where to find the stack base pointer
-and data segments when programs are run from WorkBench, as opposed
-to running from the CLI. The compiler dependent code is all in the
-GC_get_stack_base() and GC_register_data_segments() functions, but
-may spread as I add Amiga specific features.
-
-Given that SAS/C was assumed, the port is set up to be built with
-"smake" using the "SMakefile". Compiler options in "SCoptions" can
-be set with "scopts" program. Both "smake" and "scopts" are part of
-the SAS/C commercial development system.
-
-In keeping with the porting philosophy outlined above, this port
-will not behave well with Amiga specific code. Especially not inter-
-process comms via messages, and setting up public structures like
-Intuition objects or anything else in the system lists. For the
-time being the use of this library is limited to single threaded
-ANSI/POSIX compliant or near-complient code. (ie. Stick to stdio
-for now). Given this limitation there is currently no mechanism for
-allocating "CHIP" or "PUBLIC" memory under the garbage collector.
-I'll add this after giving it considerable thought. The major
-problem is the entire physical address space may have to me scanned,
-since there is no telling who we may have passed memory to.
-
-If you allocate your own stack in client code, you will have to
-assign the pointer plus stack size to GC_stackbottom.
-
-The initial stack size of the target program can be compiled in by
-setting the __stack symbol (see SAS documentaion). It can be over-
-ridden from the CLI by running the AmigaDOS "stack" program, or from
-the WorkBench by setting the stack size in the tool types window.
-
-SAS/C COMPILER OPTIONS (SCoptions)
-
-You may wish to check the "CPU" code option is appropriate for your
-intended target system.
-
-Under no circumstances set the "StackExtend" code option in either
-compiling the library or *ANY* client code.
-
-All benign compiler warnings have been suppressed. These mainly
-involve lack of prototypes in the code, and dead assignments
-detected by the optimizer.
-
-THE GOOD NEWS
-
-The library as it stands is compatible with the GigaMem commercial
-virtual memory software, and probably similar PD software.
-
-The performance of "gctest" on an Amiga 2630 (68030 @ 25Mhz)
-compares favourably with an HP9000 with similar architecture (a 325
-with a 68030 I think).
-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-The Amiga port has been brought to you by:
-
-Jesper Peterson.
-
-jep@mtiame.mtia.oz.au (preferred, but 1 week turnaround)
-jep@orca1.vic.design.telecom.au (that's orca<one>, 1 day turnaround)
-
-At least one of these addresses should be around for a while, even
-though I don't work for either of the companies involved.
-