x/sys/unix: replace Perl scripts with Go programs

[kevinburke]

It would be good to remove the dependency on Perl in our core projects. It should also be easy to determine when a Go script is compatible with the existing Perl script, since it shouldn't generate a Git diff.

[randall77]

Also package syscall and regexp/syntax.

[kardianos]

Adding information if someone decides to start on this:
This has already been done for windows syscalls, the script for windows can be found here: $GOROOT/src/syscall/mksyscall_windows.go.

Removing the Perl implementation of mksyscall was turned down in #3977. Not sure if the feeling is still the same.

[randall77]

I don't think the argument there applies any more. The argument was "we don't want to depend on Go for bootstrapping". But that ship has sailed, we now depend on Go for bootstrapping in myriad ways.

[ebati]

Can i work on this?

[cherrymui]

Does it make porting to new platforms any harder? If Go hasn't work on the target machine, we cannot run Go program on it. Maybe it is enough to run the program on any host machine, with a cross C compiler and header files?

[tklauser]

mksyscall.pl doesn't necessarily need to be run on the GOOS/GOARCH for which to generate the new syscalls. So I think we wouldn't be making bootstrapping any harder if we rewrote mksyscall.pl in Go. Same goes for mksysnum_*.pl and mksysctl_openbsd.pl AFAICS.

/cc @ianlancetaylor @bradfitz

[bradfitz]

SGTM. I suspect we just didn't really have Go when it was written. There's no reason to keep it in Perl today.

[kevinburke]

@ebati I don't think anyone is working on this currently

[darkLord19]

I would love to work on this if no one is working on it. What is the function of mksyscall.pl currently in codebase? Besides any pointers about task would be very appreciated.