Dec 99 Factory Floor
Volume Number: 15
Issue Number: 12
Column Tag: From the Factory Floor
Debugging AltiVec
by by Richard Atwell, ©1999 by Metrowerks, Inc., all rights reserved
Compile and debug your AltiVec code with
About The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor started as a means for providing a Metrowerks presence in MacTech
where you could read about the state of CodeWarrior and get to know the people behind
them.
Dave Mark has been writing for the Factory Floor for about as long as I can remember.
He's interviewed most of the engineers at Metrowerks and covered pretty much
everything we've done since the introduction of the Power Macintosh. Dave's done a
remarkable job month after month without taking a vacation so we're going to give him
a break from writing for the first time in four years.
This month I'm going to show you what we've done to the debugger in order to support
the debugging of AltiVec code but first I'll update you on the progress of the IDE and
news about future updates.
Factory Updates
In the last article I explained how our new update strategy works. The next update
should have shipped by the time this article appears in print.
Factory Update 5.3 includes updated compilers, an updated version of MSL, and the
latest IDE that contains bug fixes in the integrated debugger and incorporates all the
changes since the last release. The last time we updated the integrated debugger was
when we shipped Pro5 back in July.
The next update that we have planned that will come out after 5.3 will include
carbonized versions of MSL from our compiler/library team and a carbonized version
of PowerPlant from Greg Dow, both based on the latest sources. The Pro5 reference CD
contained pre-release versions of a carbonized MSL and a carbonized version of
PowerPlant based on the last Pro4 update, 1.9.3. If you can't wait for the next update,
that release is a good place to see what's changed although it's a little out of date with
the latest Carbon SDK from Apple.
In addition we'll have a fully Carbonized IDE release that includes compilers and a
single machine debugging solution for Mac OS X. You can catch up on the remote
debugging news in the August 1999 issue. We've added some new features so you'll not
only get a single IDE that runs on Mac OS 7-9 and Mac OS X but one that contains new
features as well.
AltiVec Support
If you're not aware of what AltiVec can do be sure to read Tom Thompson's excellent
article on AltiVec (MacTech July 1999). Vector technology that leapfrogs current
system performance obstacles and it is built into every shipping desktop Power
Macintosh.
Aside from several debugger bug fixes, the latest IDE includes complete support for
debugging AltiVec code. The Pro5 IDE wasn't well suited for AltiVec debugging because
the support was incomplete. AltiVec debugger support was originally added to the IDE