Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> writes:
>
> You want peoples existing applications to suddenely and magically change
> their results. Umm problem.
So, how would you feel about a mechanism whereby the kernel could be
passed a default FPU control word by the binary (with old binaries, by
default, using the old default control word)? There's already an ELF
AT_FPUCW auxv entry type. What if this was used by the kernel, rather
than the C library (as it is now), to set a default to be used in
"init_fpu()" when and if the program executed a floating point
instruction?
Then, a compiler startup-code writer would be able to specify a
default control word for binaries that was appropriate for (new)
programs generated by that compiler *WITHOUT* worrying about whether
he was accidentally turning a non-FP program into an FP program by
introducing "fnstcw" as its only FPU instruction.
The C library is already trying to do this (setting the CW based on
the AT_FPUCW vector). It just can't do it *right* because it doesn't
know if the program is really FP. It just guesses that if the
AT_FPUCW vector contains something other than the hard-coded
_FPU_DEFAULT (which is supposed to be equal to the kernel default: it
isn't, but it's close enough), it must be set; otherwise, it's left
alone.
Kevin <buhr@stat.wisc.edu>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 07 2001 - 21:00:15 EST