Paltform compatibility question

[Wendy_4]

Hi,

We are going to migrate our system from HP PA-RISC to Itatium. Currently we are using HP-UX 11i v1, we are going to upgrade to HP-UX v2. We want our application working on both PA-RISC and Itanium. We use HP aC++ compiler.

My questions:

1) If we compile our code on differnt processor, do we need to change code to make the system working on both platform?
2) Do we need to compile on different processor? Can we compile code on PR-RISC and use the binary running on Itanium?

Thanks,
Wendy

[spex]

Wendy,

The Aries Dynamic Binary Translator allows PA-RISC code to run on the Itanium architecture. Aries comes pre-installed on HP-UX Integrity systems.

http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,8566,00.html
http://www.hp.com/products1/evolution/9000/services_complimentary.html

PCS

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Wendy:

If you compile PA-RISC code, it will run on IPF automatically using the ARIES emulation. See the 11.23 manpages for 'Aries(5)'. Code compiled for the IPF will not run on PA-RISC.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Wendy_4]

Thanks all for your help!

I still have questions:

1) What is IPF stand for?

2) If we develop application and compile on PA-RISC, we don't have to recompile on Itanium and suppose it should work on Itanium. Am I right? If yes, is there any performance issue? From the document it seems ARIES solution is for end user, but we are the vendor.

Thanks!
Wendy

[Wendy_4]

Thanks all for your help!

I still have questions:

1) What does IPF stand for?

2) If we develop application and compile on PA-RISC, we don't have to recompile on Itanium and suppose it should work on Itanium. Am I right? If yes, is there any performance issue? From the document it seems ARIES solution is for end user, but we are the vendor.

Thanks!
Wendy

[spex]

Wendy,

1) IPF: Itanium Processor Family. It is also referred to as IA-64.

2) There's no guarantee that your software will work, unmodified, on the Itanium. However, from what I've read, chances are good that it will. There will definitely be a performance penalty, though, as emulated code never runs as fast as native.

If you found any of the answers in this thread helpful, don't forget to assign points.

PCS

[Wendy_4]

Thanks a lot Spex!

The last question:

If we have code developed on PA-RISC, we recompile on Itanium, we don't have to change code. Am I right?

Thanks,
Wendy

[Sandman! · Accepted solution]

No need to change the source code before compiling on IPF. Only the compile time options maybe different but the source code doesn't need to change.

[OldSchool]

Ok, your a vendor. The question is, will you still need to distribute PA-RISC executables? If so, I believe you will still need a PA-RISC box, as I don't believe you can generate PA-RISC executables on Itanium (cross-compile).

However, I could be wrong

[Wendy_4]

Hello OldSchool,

I do need to run application on both PA-RISC and Itanium. Since we are vendor, I don't think we can use ARIES in this case. My proposal is to compile the same source code on PA-RISC and Itanium and ship application on different platform to user.

To assess the workload for development, I need to know we can share the same source code on PA-RISC and Itanium. We only need to compile on different platform.

I need confirmation about this. Hope I make this clear to every Guru.

Thanks,
Wendy

[Sandman!]

Here's an HP site (C++ faq) that has a generic list of questions you may found helpful.

http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSoftwareDetailPage_IDX/1,1703,5507,00.html

~hope it helps

[Wendy_4]

Thanks a lot Sandman!

I look into document and our make files, even though we use aC++, it seems we never use -AA option. That means we use default -AP option. Am I right?

We should be able to use the same source code on both PA-RISC and Itanium. However we need to use -AA on PA-RISC to fix all the errors, then we can share same code. Am I right?

Thanks,
Wendy

[Sandman!]

Yes that is correct the compile time option for IPF compilation is -AA as opposed to the PA-RISC option of -AP.

If your source code is purely C then simply use the -Ae compile time option and it will run on both PA-RISC and IPF machines otherwise use the compile time options mentioned in the previous paragraph.

~cheers

[Dennis Handly]

You may have to change your sources to compile on IPF since the compiler there is much stricter.

Also, if you need to port to -AA, you would need conditional compilation so that your source still compiles with -AP on PA. Of course if you don't have any third party aC++ shlibs, you could use -AA on PA too.