Hi!

The merge-2.067 is already in a good shape. I though I could try to cross compile to AArch64.
Normally I use real hardware for porting but AArch64 metal is still rare. Here is what I did:

I am using Gentoo Linux. First I emerged qemu with QEMU_USER_TARGETS="aarch64". There is nothing special here - it compiles a qemu-aarch64 binary.

The next step was to create a cross compiler with crossdev:
USE="-fortran -sanitize" crossdev -t aarch64-pc-linux-gnu
This created  gcc 4.8.4, binutils 2.25 and glibc 2.20 for AArch64.
It is a bit tricky to find a working triple and the right versions to use.

In order to create the D libraries for AArch64, I needed to change the file runtime/CMakeLists.txt in the LDC source.
Before the main configuration I added

set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux)
set(CMAKE_C_COMPILER aarch64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc)
set(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER aarch64-pc-linux-gnu-c++)

This tells CMake to use the cross compiler. I also added -mtriple=aarch64-pc-linux-gnu to the D_FLAGS variable.
Run cmake and compile with make -k. You might need to run make twice. There is still a problem with core.stdc.stdarg and phobos has still errors because of this.

The libraries in the lib folder are compiled for AArch64. Create a "Hello World" program and compile it with:
bin/ldc2 -mtriple=aarch64-pc-linux-gnu -gcc=aarch64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -L-rpath=/usr/lib/gcc/aarch64-pc-linux-gnu/4.8.4

(I add the -rpath= option because I do not know how to tell qemu where to find libgcc_s.so.)

To execute the binary just type
qemu-aarch64 -L /usr/aarch64-pc-linux-gnu ./hello

Success!
I could also run a unittest - e.g. core.bitop.

I hope this post helps if someone wants to cross compile to a different architecture.

Regards,
Kai

"Kai Nacke" <kai@redstar.de> writes:

> The merge-2.067 is already in a good shape. I though I could try to cross compile to AArch64.

Nice.  I plan to follow in a month with hardware.

It's good to hear about aa64. But what about win32?

Great stuff. I think you should add this to the wiki somewhere!

-Johan

On Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 03:44:38 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
> "Kai Nacke" <kai@redstar.de> writes:
>
>> The merge-2.067 is already in a good shape. I though I could try to
>> cross compile to AArch64.
>
> Nice.  I plan to follow in a month with hardware.

Note that the vararg code is currently horrible broken (ICE). Which hardware do you want to use? iPhone?

Regards,
Kai

On Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 19:08:13 UTC, Johan Engelen wrote:
> Great stuff. I think you should add this to the wiki somewhere!
>
> -Johan

I added the status to the wiki. Thanks for the hint.

Regards,
Kai

On Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 15:15:01 UTC, Temtaime wrote:
> It's good to hear about aa64. But what about win32?

Win32 exception handling is currently added to LLVM. If this is done I will create a native Win32 client.

(Yes, I consider the Windows platform important. But the exception handling stuff is very complicated and easily broken...)

Regards,
Kai

I'm glad to hear that :)
I'll try to build ldc with llvm trunk today i think as win64 target.

"Kai Nacke" <kai@redstar.de> writes:

> On Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 03:44:38 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
>> "Kai Nacke" <kai@redstar.de> writes:
>>
>>> The merge-2.067 is already in a good shape. I though I could try to cross compile to AArch64.
>>
>> Nice.  I plan to follow in a month with hardware.
>
> Note that the vararg code is currently horrible broken (ICE). Which hardware do you want to use? iPhone?

Yeah - iPhone

Dan Olson <zans.is.for.cans@yahoo.com> writes:

> "Kai Nacke" <kai@redstar.de> writes:
>
>> On Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 03:44:38 UTC, Dan Olson wrote:
>>> "Kai Nacke" <kai@redstar.de> writes:
>>>
>>>> The merge-2.067 is already in a good shape. I though I could try to cross compile to AArch64.
>>>
>>> Nice.  I plan to follow in a month with hardware.
>>
>> Note that the vararg code is currently horrible broken (ICE). Which hardware do you want to use? iPhone?
>
> Yeah - iPhone

Oh, and an Android arm64 tablet too.  I have to wait until mid-summer though because I am in a busy spell right now.