On 10/26/07, Nicolas Williams <Nicolas.Williams at sun.com> wrote: > > > > No. Expect is used as a top level app. I am not aware of any > > application that uses libexpect and *require* it to be in 64bit and do > > not work otherwise (as is the case for the ARC case for 64bit Tcl/Tk). > > But do we have to know of such an application before we'll ship a 64-bit > version of some library? Isn't the point to enable development of 32- > and 64-bit applications alike? If libexpect cannot be built as a 64-bit > object that's one thing, but if it can, why not ship it? >
Just like any new interface has to establish a case to be introduced, even this would need to. Solaris 64-bit Developer's Guide [docs.sun.com : 816-5138] is clear about this: Conversion is necessary only if - the app needs more than 4GB of virtual address space - Uses a library that has only a 64-bit version - Is numeric computation intensive and needs 64-bit registers for performance reasons - ...couple of other points that are still farther for this case It goes on to say 32-bit apps that do not require 64-bit capabilities should remain 32-bit to maximize portability. -Shiv
