[fpc-devel] LLVM Backend?

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Matej Spiller-Muys said:
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> > You also get breaking backwards compatibility with a lot of existing
> Delphi code for free. I repeat: you really cannot underestimate the amount
> of
> > implementation details that existing Delphi code depends on, and people
> already complain about FPC's incompatibility with those implementation
> details.
> Just so we are clear, what implementation details are you talking about
> (that you would loose with C++ ABI)? C++ Builder and Delphi have the same
> ABI and they work quite nicely together.

Afaik not, you have to declare a modifier to use BCB classes in Delphi, and
a lot of directives {$externalsym} and runtime checks {$stringchecks} have
to be added to Pascal code so that it can interop with C++

> There are even C++ libraries being used inside delphi (like xerces and
> xalan). Even Delphi VCL is used inside C++ (Builder). Btw how does the
> wxForms for Delphi (port of wxWidgets) on Delphi work? It is commercial so
> I don't know how they have resolved the C++ linking problems because they
> also claim FPC compatibility. Another possible option is to create a
> Objective C LLVM wrapper, since FPC already claims to support it.

It is different that they control both sides, IOW they also can shift with
the C++ implementation to suit the Pascal side. WHich is not the case if you
try to converge e.g. FPC with MSVC or GCC or LLVM.