GCC and GMP 5.0.1

[Dennis Clarke]

> "Steve M. Robbins" <steve at sumost.ca> writes:
>
>   I'm curious if any distributions have begun shipping with GMP 5?
>   Debian Linux's GMP (which I maintain) is presently 4.3.2 and we're
>   having a bit of a debate whether to upgrade to GMP 5.
>
>   GCC uses GMP internally and there is a concern that the upgrade could
>   cause a regression in GCC.  Debian builds on more than a dozen
>   architectures and there are a couple of GCC versions current amongst
>   the architectures.
>
> It is an interesting idea of GMP causing trouble for GCC...
>
>   Any experience good or bad with building GCC using GMP 5 would
>   be appreciated.
>
> You need to understand that GMP is something such anachronistic as
> carefully designed, carefully written, and carefully tested software.
>
> The likelihood that GCC's constant folding should strike a GMP bug is
> extremely slim.  If it actually happens, it will with almost 100%
> certainty be due to that GCC miscompiled GMP.  Fortunately, GMP's test
> suite covers all GMP code, so if people check for such miscompiles
> before using their freshly compiled GMP, they should be safe.  (There is
> a non-zero likelyhood that several GCC bugs collude in making the tests
> miss library miscompiles...)
>
> --
> Torbjörn

I have had no measurable problems with GCC 4.5.{1|2} with gmp 5.0.1


-- 
Dennis Clarke
dclarke at opensolaris.ca  <- Email related to the open source Solaris
dclarke at blastwave.org   <- Email related to open source for Solaris