octave 2.9.9: use gcc42

[ryandesign@…]

I don't use octave; I'm looking through all ports that depend on gcc40 trying to determine if they could be updated to use the latest stable version of gcc, which is gcc42. If octave will work with gcc42, the port should be updated to do so. It would be very unfortunate for someone to have to build both gcc40 to build octave and gcc42 to build some other port, especially since that requirement would only hit those in the worst shape for building huge packages like gcc -- those with PowerPC Macs, which on average have less RAM, less hard drive space, and are much slower at these kinds of things than Intel Macs.

Patch attached to update octave to use gcc42 all the time, not just on Intel. Note that I have not tested this patch; please do so before committing.

[stephen@…]

Not to worry about PowerPC Macs. GCC 4.2 still doesn't build on them anyway, see #12060. This has been broken in DarwinPorts/MacPorts for maybe a year now. I first reported it on Mac OS X 10.3.9. I thought maybe odcctools would help but they're broken too, reporting separately.

[stephen@…]

Oops, sorry, the correct reference is #12219.

[ryandesign@…]

Looking in #12219, we see that gcc42 installs just fine on PowerPC Macs, so the original request in this ticket remains. Can the maintainer please comment?

[ryandesign@…]

updated version of patch

[bfulgham@…]

Attempting to build octave with gcc42 under Leopard (Intel) continues to fail, even with Ryan's patch:

adding -mieee-fp to FFLAGS configure: defining FFLAGS to be -O -mieee-fp checking whether gfortran-mp-4.2 /opt/local/bin/gfortran-mp-4.2 accepts -ffloat-store... yes setting F77_FLOAT_STORE_FLAG to -ffloat-store checking for sgemm_ in -framework Accelerate... yes checking for cheev_... yes checking BLAS library calling convention compatibility... no configure: WARNING: Your BLAS library was apparently compiled with a Fortran configure: WARNING: compiler that uses a different calling convention from configure: WARNING: the one used by the selected compiler, gfortran-mp-4.2 /opt/local/bin/gfortran-mp-4.2. configure: error: You must correct this problem before building Octave.

[bfulgham@…]

Note that the new 2.9.17 version seems to build better under Leopard.

[ryandesign@…]

The maintainer has indicated that he's busy with other things at this time, and since we've gotten several problem reports about octave lately, I'll see if I can't fix it up.

Committing this patch to use gcc42 in r31183. Updating octave to a newer version will be handled in #12937.