[arch-general] Depends loop in gcc-gcj and eclipse-ecj

[Jan de Groot]

On Mon, 2007-12-31 at 16:58 -0600, Aaron Griffin wrote:
> On Dec 31, 2007 8:21 AM, Jan de Groot <jan at jgc.homeip.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-12-31 at 05:32 -0600, Aaron Griffin wrote:
> > > On Dec 31, 2007 3:07 AM, Karolina Lindqvist
> > > <karolina.lindqvist at kramnet.se> wrote:
> > > > gcc-gcj depends on eclipse-ecj which depends on gcc-gcj, making a dependency
> > > > loop.
> > >
> > > Please report this in the bug tracker so in can be assigned to the
> > > proper people to take care of it
> >
> > The bug won't be taken care of, since gcc needs eclipse-ecj for the
> > compiler to work, and eclipse-ecj needs a runtime to be able to
> > function.
> 
> Yeah, I figured it was rationale, but it's much easier to reference a
> bug report than some random ML post about it 8)
> 
> Either way, Jan, could you possibly provide some build instructions in
> the PKGBUILD for this? It seems confusing and I'd rather not see this
> knowledge on how to build them exist only in your head (what if you
> get hit by a bus? heh)

The way to bootstrap this thingy is quite complicated:

- Build and install the last 4.1 version of gcj that didn't depend on
eclipse-ecj
- Build and install eclipse-ecj using this version of gcj
- Build and install the first gcj that had the eclipse-ecj dependency,
the bootstrap instructions in the PKGBUILD seem to only work with that
version, later versions are broken
- Build the latest gcj

In theory, if we can fix the bootstrap in gcj for pre-eclipse builds of
it, we would have the same bootstrap method as normal gcc: as long as
you have a working gcj you can compile gcj. The same goes for gcc: as
long as your system has gcc, you can compile gcc.

Eclipse-ecj gets a bootstrap build inside the PKGBUILD, the code is
generated by ecj, so there's no need to rebuild eclipse-ecj at a later
stage.