D Cross Compiler

[Iain Buclaw]

Hi Brendan,

For reference purposes, repeating what I've already said before elsewhere.

== Quote from Brendan Simon (eTRIX) (brendan.simon at etrix.com.au)'s article
> Can GDC (or DMD) be built as a cross compiler ?? e.g. targeting ARM or
> MIPS or PowerPC, etc ?? I'm presuming this should be no problem for GCC ??

Yes, but first you'll need to setup a cross-compiler toolchain first. As as, ar,
objdump, strip and other binutils don't come bundled with GCC (require a separate
step to setup and install).

> My development/host platforms are OS X and Debian Linux. Are there any
> prebuilt binaries for such cross-compilers ??

Nope, I've only really tested ARM <-> i386 and MinGW <-> Linux cross compilers in
the past.

> BTW, does GDC generate C++ code for GCC to compile, or does it directly
> generate object code ?? I'm presuming the latter.

Neither, it generates straight to the target platform's asm code. It is the job of
the toolchain to compile to object code / link.

> Can D be used in low-level drivers for Linux or other RTOS (e.g.
> freertos) ??

D is not really suitable for a freestanding environment. Especially if you intend
to use any non-POD features of the language (C++ has the same problem too).

Regards
Iain