[fpc-devel]A way to speed up make cycle: A smaller rtl

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Vincent Snijders wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Lately a number of units were added to the rtl, e.g. strutils, matrix
> and convutils. AFAIK these units are not needed by the compiler, but
> they still are compiled and recompiled in the make cycle of the
> compiler.
>
> Why don't you spilt up the rtl in a part needed by the compiler and the
> other units? That way those utility units don't need to be recompiled so
> much. You can also move them to the FCL or packages.
>
> Another option may be to have a special make target for the rtl, that
> only makes the units for the RTL (e.g make compilerrtl). That way the
> RTL can remain as feature-rich as it is, but it doesn't slow down the
> compilation of a new compiler.

Actually, I once already proposed this last option to the core group.
I believe the argument was at that time that most computers nowadays are
fast enough to do the whole cycle so fast that the difference is
neglectible.

But feel free to submit a patch, I'm sure that, once committed, no-one
will object ;-)

The only thing is that after a make cycle, a full make will still be
needed before making the installation zip...

Michael.