Known Build Problems

You might find more up-to-date information at http://www.swox.com/gmp/.

Generic C on a 64-bit system

When making a generic C build using `--target=none' on a 64-bit system (meaning where unsigned long is 64 bits), BITS_PER_MP_LIMB, BITS_PER_LONGINT and BYTES_PER_MP_LIMB in `mpn/generic/gmp-mparam.h' need to be changed to 64 and 8. This will hopefully be automated in a future version of GMP.

NeXT prior to 3.3

The system compiler on old versions of NeXT was a massacred and old GCC, even if it called itself `cc'. This compiler cannot be used to build GMP, you need to get a real GCC, and install that before you compile GMP. (NeXT may have fixed this in release 3.3 of their system.)

POWER and PowerPC

Bugs in GCC 2.7.2 (and 2.6.3) mean it can't be used to compile GMP on POWER or PowerPC. If you want to use GCC for these machines, get GCC 2.7.2.1 (or later).

Sequent Symmetry

Use the GNU assembler instead of the system assembler, since the latter has serious bugs.

Stripped Libraries

GNU binutils `strip' should not be used on the static libraries `libgmp.a' and `libmp.a', neither directly nor via `make install-strip'. It can be used on the shared libraries `libgmp.so' and `libmp.so' though. Currently (binutils 2.10.0), `strip' extracts archives into a single directory, but GMP contains multiple object files of the same name (eg. three versions of `init.o'), and they overwrite each other, leaving only the one that happens to be last. If stripped static libraries are wanted, the suggested workaround is to build normally, strip the separate object files, and do another `make all' to rebuild. Alternately `CFLAGS' with `-g' omitted can always be used if it's just debugging which is unwanted.

SunOS 4 Native Tools

The setting for GSYM_PREFIX in `config.m4' may be incorrectly determined when using the native grep, leading at link-time to undefined symbols like ___gmpn_add_n. To fix this, after running `./configure', change the relevant line in `config.m4' to `define(<GSYM_PREFIX>, <_>)'. The ranlib command will need to be run manually when building a static library with the native ar. After `make', run `ranlib .libs/libgmp.a', and when using @option{--enable-mpbsd} run `ranlib .libs/libmp.a' too.

VAX running Ultrix

You need to build and install the GNU assembler before you compile GMP. The VAX assembly in GMP uses an instruction (jsobgtr) that cannot be assembled by the Ultrix assembler.

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