>The register names $ta0 .. $ta3 were added by SGI for N32 / N64 code. >Because these reference $8 .. $11 just like $t0 .. $t3 in the O32 ABI their availability in O32 as well appears dangerous, if not a bug: > >$ cat s.s > addu $ta0, $ta0 >$ mips-linux-as -o s.o s.s >$ file s.o >s.o: ELF 32-bit MSB relocatable, MIPS, MIPS-I version 1 (SYSV), not stripped $ > >I was expecting an error message and I'm wondering, was this intentional? I would say so. I call this a feature. It makes it easier to write assembly code that assembles without change in both O32 and N32/N64. Consider a function that has 4 or fewer arguments, but needs a pile of scratch registers. It can use ta0-ta3 as four scratch registers, which is correct in all the ABIs. paul
