I've reached the point with the AArch64 code generation that DMD should be able to generate working programs with it.

Since everything has to work in order to compile druntime, I am working first on ImportC, which only requires the C standard library to function. I had it working with "hello world", a trivial program, but am now ready for more substantial testing.

It turns out that the D test suite doesn't have much C code in it, and does not have specific tests for arithmetic and other low level operations. (A lot of this is tested incidentally by everything else in the libraries and test suite.) These tests do exist for the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler, and I relied on testing that compiler for that testing.

But, I am no longer building DMC++ and am not running that test suite anymore.

So I have started adding parts of the DMC test suite to the D test suite. Those tests date back to the 1980s, and are targeted at the 16 bit memory model, Windows, and obsolete C practices. The first step was to update this and get it to work with gcc.

Next, I needed to get it running with ImportC for x86. That blew up. It seems that old test suite is doing its job and detecting faults in ImportC! But my focus is on compiling the code with AArch64, so I'm just filing bug reports on ImportC to fix later.

Aaaand, I'm making progress getting the AArch64 code generator to work with the C test suite. A long ways to go yet.

The near term plan:

1. file ImportC bug reports on things in test/runnable/exe1.c that don't work for x86_64

2. get dmd to compile exe1.c for AArch64 without crashing in the code generator

3. get exe1.c to run on my Raspberry Pi

An awful lot of the code generator has to work in order for (3) to work.

On Friday, 7 March 2025 at 17:41:13 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> I've reached the point with the AArch64 code generation that DMD should be able to generate working programs with it.
>
> Since everything has to work in order to compile druntime, I am working first on ImportC, which only requires the C standard library to function. I had it working with "hello world", a trivial program, but am now ready for more substantial testing.

Glad the work is progressing!

Why not test with D code using -betterC ?

On 3/7/2025 10:59 AM, Ben Jones wrote:
> Why not test with D code using -betterC ?

Good question!

1. I don't have to translate the code to D

2. There isn't a D compiler on my Raspberry Pi, but there is gcc, so gcc is useful as reference compiler

3. It exposes issues with ImportC

On Friday, 7 March 2025 at 20:57:19 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 3/7/2025 10:59 AM, Ben Jones wrote:
>> Why not test with D code using -betterC ?
>
> Good question!
>
> 1. I don't have to translate the code to D
>
> 2. There isn't a D compiler on my Raspberry Pi, but there is gcc, so gcc is useful as reference compiler

you should be able to get a GCC that includes GDC. Also LDC works on RasPi.

On 3/7/2025 3:00 PM, Nicholas Wilson wrote:
> you should be able to get a GCC that includes GDC. Also LDC works on RasPi.

I know. But I'm a ways from needing it.