Getting Started with Multiflow

• Multiflow currently works only on the DEC Alphas.
• Put /projects/trace1/mflow/usr/vssad/bin in your path.
• The command for the C compiler is scc.
• Basic usage is "scc -v osf" instead of cc. The -v specifies which version of the compiler to use. Versions other than osf include grant, matthai, and mock.
• Use -I/projects/trace1/mflow/usr/vssad/release/osf/usr/usr_include_alpha to pick up Multiflow's versions of standard include files for the 32-bit version of the compiler.
• You can only link with libraries compiled by Multiflow because it only handles 32-bit data and uses its own calling convention.
• Most other command-line options are the same as cc, except use -S to leave an assembler file instead of -s.
• No symbol-table information is generated by Multiflow (-g is broken), so debugging programs compiled by Multiflow is painful. You can't tell the debugger to give you the values of variables by name. It is likely that debugging will never work because Multiflow only has debugging support for BSD 4.3 binaries and no support for the XCOFF binaries used on the Alpha. Note, however, that debugging is possible if you use the 64-bit version (see below)!
• Support for the standard profiling tools (prof, gprof) via the command-line options -p and -pg appears to be non-existant (command pf not found?; the man page for pf is in /projects/trace1/mflow/proj/vssad/vssad.alpha/build.alpha/man/pf).
• Execute "uac p 0" before using or compiling Multflow to eliminate annoying "Unaligned access" messages.
• We now have a 64-bit version that uses the standard DEC calling convention, thanks to Charlie (versions grant, matthai, and mock have 64-bit support). To use the 64-bit version, use the following arguments:

  -mGLOB_arg_integer_regs=6 -mGLOB_arg_floating_regs=6 \
  -mGLOB_ret_integer_regs=1 -mGLOB_ret_floating_regs=2 \
  -mGLOB_machine_word_size=64 \
  -mP1OPT_call_default=P1OPT_CALL_DEFAULT_REGS \
  -mP1OPT_entry_default=P1OPT_ENTRY_DEFAULT_REGS -mGLOB_as_type=osf \
  -mP1COPT_ansi -D__LANGUAGE_C__ -Dsigned= \
  -I/projects/trace1/mflow/usr/vssad/release/garrett/usr/usr_include_alpha \
  -S
  

  (You must specify to keep the assembly file, then use the DEC compiler to create the object file. This is good, however, because the DEC compiler will generate proper debugging information.)

Last updated August 6, 1997.
Brian Grant (grant@cs.washington.edu)