Re: [avr-gcc-list] Structs in program memory.

[Svein E. Seldal]

E. Weddington wrote:
> You're right Christian, it could be added to GCC itself; I've been aware of this. The problem of 
> course is finding people who are:
> 1. Willing to do it.
> 2. Capable of doing it.
>
> Right now, there are 2 listed maintainers of the AVR port of GCC, both of which are not very 
> actively involved in it. There is a bug list for the AVR port of GCC that is languishing. Granted 
> there aren't many bugs, and especially show-stopper bugs. I know of one other person (Ted 
> Roth) who is getting his FSF paperwork done so he can submit patches to GCC. However, 
> Ted is so incredibly busy with maintaining avr-libc, uisp, avrdude, simulavr, avarice, and the 
> AVR port of GDB. It would certainly help to have other volunteers, especially with GCC. I agree 
> that it would be incredibly beneficial to have this feature; it would be quite the coup. But it's not 
> going to easily happen without volunteers willing to go through all the hoops to get there.

Well.. I have all the papers required for submitting patches to gcc, 
binutils and gdb. However, the main issue with this PROGMEM thing is to 
do it correctly. According to my knowledge of gcc, I fear that making 
support for several memoryspaces, might turn up to be a bigger problem 
than it sounds. This thing will hit gcc in the central core, and thus 
affect all targets. GCC is might be flexible in some areas, while its 
quite rigid in others...

Thats mostly why I would surely like to get "central" gcc support for 
this idea first. If the core developer gets the point that this is a 
rather major feature for the AVR port, this project has higher odds of 
surviving. Maybe the AVR community should join efforts and try to 
convince the gcc community to get this feature introduced?

I do not want to burn up too much energy trying to implement something 
that is either too complex or having the risk of being rejected by the 
gcc team becuase of policy reasons.

Svein