| 1 | <html> | 
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| 2 |  | 
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| 3 | <head> | 
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| 4 | <title>GCC Frequently Asked Questions</title> | 
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| 5 | </head> | 
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| 6 |  | 
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| 7 | <body> | 
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| 8 |  | 
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| 9 | <h1>GCC Frequently Asked Questions</h1> | 
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| 10 |  | 
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| 11 | <p>The latest version of this document is always available at | 
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| 12 | <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html">http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html</a>.</p> | 
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| 13 |  | 
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| 14 | <p>This FAQ tries to answer specific questions concerning GCC. For | 
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| 15 | general information regarding C, C++, resp. Fortran please check the | 
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| 16 | <a href="http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html">comp.lang.c FAQ</a>, | 
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| 17 | <a href="http://www.jamesd.demon.co.uk/csc/faq.html">comp.std.c++ | 
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| 18 | FAQ</a>, | 
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| 19 | and the <a href="http://www.fortran.com/fortran/info.html">Fortran | 
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| 20 | Information page</a>.</p> | 
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| 21 |  | 
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| 22 | <p>Other GCC-related FAQs: | 
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| 23 | <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/faq/index.html"> | 
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| 24 | libstdc++-v3</a>, and | 
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| 25 | <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/java/faq.html">GCJ</a>.</p> | 
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| 26 |  | 
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| 27 | <hr /> | 
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| 28 | <h1>Questions</h1> | 
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| 29 | <ol> | 
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| 30 | <li><a href="#general">General information</a> | 
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| 31 | <ol> | 
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| 32 | <li><a href="#gcc">What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS?</a></li> | 
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| 33 | <li><a href="#open-development">What is an open development model?</a></li> | 
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| 34 | <li><a href="#support">How do I get a bug fixed or a feature added?</a></li> | 
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| 35 | <li><a href="#platforms">Does GCC work on my platform?</a></li> | 
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| 36 | </ol></li> | 
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| 37 |  | 
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| 38 | <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a> | 
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| 39 | <ol> | 
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| 40 | <li><a href="#multiple">How to install multiple versions of GCC</a></li> | 
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| 41 | <li><a href="#rpath">Dynamic linker is unable to find GCC libraries</a></li> | 
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| 42 | <li><a href="#rpath">libstdc++/libio tests fail badly with --enable-shared</a></li> | 
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| 43 | <li><a href="#gas">GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld</a></li> | 
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| 44 | <li><a href="#environ">cpp: Usage:... Error</a></li> | 
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| 45 | <li><a href="#optimizing">Optimizing the compiler itself</a></li> | 
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| 46 | <li><a href="#iconv">Why does <code>libiconv</code> get linked into <code>jc1</code> on Solaris?</a></li> | 
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| 47 | </ol></li> | 
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| 48 |  | 
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| 49 | <li><a href="#testsuite">Testsuite problems</a> | 
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| 50 | <ol> | 
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| 51 | <li><a href="#testoptions">How do I pass flags like | 
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| 52 | <code>-fnew-abi</code> to the testsuite?</a></li> | 
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| 53 | <li><a href="#multipletests">How can I run the test suite with multiple options?</a></li> | 
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| 54 | </ol></li> | 
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| 55 |  | 
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| 56 | <li><a href="#old">Older versions of GCC</a> | 
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| 57 | <ol> | 
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| 58 | <li><a href="#2.95sstream">Is there a stringstream / sstream for GCC 2.95.2?</a></li> | 
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| 59 | </ol></li> | 
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| 60 |  | 
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| 61 | <li><a href="#misc">Miscellaneous</a> | 
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| 62 | <ol> | 
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| 63 | <li><a href="#friend">Friend Templates</a></li> | 
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| 64 | <li><a href="#dso"><code>dynamic_cast</code>, <code>throw</code>, <code>typeid</code> don't work with shared libraries</a></li> | 
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| 65 | <li><a href="#generated_files">Why do I need autoconf, bison, xgettext, automake, etc?</a></li> | 
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| 66 | <li><a href="#picflag-needed">Why can't I build a shared library?</a></li> | 
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| 67 | <li><a href="#vtables">When building C++, the linker says my constructors, destructors or virtual tables are undefined, but I defined them</a></li> | 
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| 68 | <li><a href="#incremental">Will GCC someday include an incremental linker?</a></li> | 
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| 69 | </ol></li> | 
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| 70 | </ol> | 
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| 71 |  | 
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| 72 |  | 
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| 73 | <hr /> | 
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| 74 | <a name="general"></a> | 
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| 75 | <h1>General information</h1> | 
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| 76 |  | 
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| 77 | <h2><a name="gcc">What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS?</a></h2> | 
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| 78 |  | 
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| 79 | <p>In 1990/1991 gcc version 1 had reached a point of stability.  For the | 
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| 80 | targets it could support, it worked well.  It had limitations inherent in | 
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| 81 | its design that would be difficult to resolve, so a major effort was made | 
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| 82 | to resolve those limitations and gcc version 2 was the result.</p> | 
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| 83 |  | 
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| 84 | <p>When we had gcc2 in a useful state, development efforts on gcc1 stopped | 
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| 85 | and we all concentrated on making gcc2 better than gcc1 could ever be.  This | 
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| 86 | is the kind of step forward we wanted to make with the EGCS project when it | 
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| 87 | was formed in 1997.</p> | 
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| 88 |  | 
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| 89 | <p>In April 1999 the Free Software Foundation officially halted | 
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| 90 | development on the gcc2 compiler and appointed the EGCS project as the | 
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| 91 | official GCC maintainers. The net result was a single project which | 
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| 92 | carries forward GCC development under the ultimate control of the | 
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| 93 | <a href="steering.html">GCC Steering Committee</a>.</p> | 
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| 94 |  | 
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| 95 |  | 
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| 96 | <hr /> | 
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| 97 | <h2><a name="open-development">What is an open development model?</a></h2> | 
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| 98 |  | 
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| 99 | <p>We are using a bazaar style | 
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| 100 | <a href="#cathedral-vs-bazaar"><b>[1]</b></a> | 
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| 101 | approach to GCC development: we make snapshots publicly available to | 
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| 102 | anyone who wants to try them; we welcome anyone to join | 
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| 103 | the development mailing list.  All of the discussions on the | 
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| 104 | development mailing list are available via the web.  We're going to be | 
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| 105 | making releases with a much higher frequency than they have been made | 
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| 106 | in the past.</p> | 
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| 107 |  | 
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| 108 | <p>In addition to weekly snapshots of the GCC development sources, we | 
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| 109 | have the sources readable from a CVS server by anyone.  Furthermore we | 
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| 110 | are using remote CVS to allow remote maintainers write access to the | 
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| 111 | sources.</p> | 
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| 112 |  | 
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| 113 | <p>There have been many potential GCC developers who were not able to | 
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| 114 | participate in GCC development in the past.  We want these people to | 
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| 115 | help in any way they can; we ultimately want GCC to be the best compiler | 
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| 116 | in the world.</p> | 
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| 117 |  | 
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| 118 | <p>A compiler is a complicated piece of software, there will still be | 
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| 119 | strong central maintainers who will reject patches, who will demand | 
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| 120 | documentation of implementations, and who will keep the level of | 
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| 121 | quality as high as it is today.  Code that could use wider testing may | 
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| 122 | be integrated--code that is simply ill-conceived won't be.</p> | 
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| 123 |  | 
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| 124 | <p>GCC is not the first piece of software to use this open development | 
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| 125 | process; FreeBSD, the Emacs lisp repository, and the Linux kernel are | 
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| 126 | a few examples of the bazaar style of development.</p> | 
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| 127 |  | 
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| 128 | <p>With GCC, we are adding new features and optimizations at a | 
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| 129 | rate that has not been done since the creation of gcc2; these | 
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| 130 | additions inevitably have a temporarily destabilizing effect. | 
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| 131 | With the help of developers working together with this bazaar style | 
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| 132 | development, the resulting stability and quality levels will be better | 
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| 133 | than we've had before.</p> | 
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| 134 |  | 
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| 135 | <blockquote> | 
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| 136 | <a name="cathedral-vs-bazaar"><b>[1]</b></a> | 
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| 137 | We've been discussing different development models a lot over the | 
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| 138 | past few months.  The paper which started all of this introduced two | 
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| 139 | terms:  A <b>cathedral</b> development model versus a <b>bazaar</b> | 
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| 140 | development model.  The paper is written by Eric S. Raymond, it is | 
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| 141 | called ``The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. | 
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| 142 | The paper is a useful starting point for discussions. | 
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| 143 | </blockquote> | 
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| 144 |  | 
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| 145 | <hr /> | 
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| 146 | <!-- The "bugreport" anchor was used in ICE messages of GCC < 2.95.3. --> | 
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| 147 | <h2 id="bugreport"><a name="support">How do I get a bug fixed or | 
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| 148 | a feature added?</a></h2> | 
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| 149 |  | 
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| 150 | <p>There are lots of ways to get something fixed.  The list below may be | 
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| 151 | incomplete, but it covers many of the common cases.  These are listed | 
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| 152 | roughly in order of decreasing difficulty for the average GCC user, | 
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| 153 | meaning someone who is not skilled in the internals of GCC, and where | 
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| 154 | difficulty is measured in terms of the time required to fix the bug. | 
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| 155 | No alternative is better than any other; each has its benefits and | 
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| 156 | disadvantages.</p> | 
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| 157 |  | 
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| 158 | <ul> | 
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| 159 | <li>Fix it yourself.  This alternative will probably bring results, | 
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| 160 | if you work hard enough, but will probably take a lot of time, | 
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| 161 | and, depending on the quality of your work and the perceived | 
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| 162 | benefits of your changes, your code may or may not ever make it | 
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| 163 | into an official release of GCC.</li> | 
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| 164 |  | 
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| 165 | <li><a href="bugs.html">Report the problem to the GCC bug tracking system</a> | 
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| 166 | and hope that someone will be kind | 
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| 167 | enough to fix it for you.  While this is certainly possible, and | 
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| 168 | often happens, there is no guarantee that it will.  You should | 
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| 169 | not expect the same response from this method that you would see | 
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| 170 | from a commercial support organization since the people who read | 
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| 171 | GCC bug reports, if they choose to help you, will be volunteering their | 
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| 172 | time.</li> | 
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| 173 |  | 
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| 174 | <li>Hire someone to fix it for you.  There are various companies and | 
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| 175 | individuals providing support for GCC.  This alternative costs | 
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| 176 | money, but is relatively likely to get results.</li> | 
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| 177 | </ul> | 
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| 178 |  | 
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| 179 | <hr /> | 
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| 180 |  | 
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| 181 | <h2><a name="platforms">Does GCC work on my platform?</a></h2> | 
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| 182 |  | 
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| 183 | <p>The host/target specific installation notes for GCC include information | 
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| 184 | about known problems with installing or using GCC on particular platforms. | 
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| 185 | These are included in the sources for a release in INSTALL/specific.html, | 
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| 186 | and the <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html">latest version</a> | 
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| 187 | is always available at the GCC web site. | 
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| 188 | Reports of <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/buildstat.html">successful builds</a> | 
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| 189 | for several versions of GCC are also available at the web site.</p> | 
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| 190 |  | 
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| 191 | <hr /> | 
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| 192 | <a name="installation"></a> | 
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| 193 | <h1>Installation</h1> | 
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| 194 |  | 
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| 195 | <h2><a name="multiple">How to install multiple versions of GCC</a></h2> | 
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| 196 |  | 
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| 197 | <p>It may be desirable to install multiple versions of the compiler on | 
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| 198 | the same system.  This can be done by using different prefix paths at | 
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| 199 | configure time and a few symlinks.</p> | 
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| 200 |  | 
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| 201 | <p>Basically, configure the two compilers with different --prefix options, | 
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| 202 | then build and install each compiler.  Assume you want "gcc" to be the latest | 
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| 203 | compiler and available in /usr/local/bin; also assume that you want "gcc2" | 
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| 204 | to be the older gcc2 compiler and also available in /usr/local/bin.</p> | 
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| 205 |  | 
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| 206 | <p>The easiest way to do this is to configure the new GCC with | 
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| 207 | <code>--prefix=/usr/local/gcc</code> and the older gcc2 with | 
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| 208 | <code>--prefix=/usr/local/gcc2</code>.  Build and install both | 
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| 209 | compilers.  Then make a symlink from <code>/usr/local/bin/gcc</code> | 
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| 210 | to <code>/usr/local/gcc/bin/gcc</code> and from | 
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| 211 | <code>/usr/local/bin/gcc2</code> to | 
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| 212 | <code>/usr/local/gcc2/bin/gcc</code>.  Create similar links for the | 
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| 213 | "g++", "c++" and "g77" compiler drivers.</p> | 
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| 214 |  | 
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| 215 | <p>An alternative to using symlinks is to configure with a | 
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| 216 | <code>--program-transform-name</code> option. This option specifies a | 
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| 217 | sed command to process installed program names with. Using it you can, | 
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| 218 | for instance, have all the new GCC programs installed as "new-gcc" and | 
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| 219 | the like. You will still have to specify different | 
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| 220 | <code>--prefix</code> options for new GCC and old GCC, because it is | 
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| 221 | only the executable program names that are transformed. The difference | 
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| 222 | is that you (as administrator) do not have to set up symlinks, but | 
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| 223 | must specify additional directories in your (as a user) PATH. A | 
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| 224 | complication with <code>--program-transform-name</code> is that the | 
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| 225 | sed command invariably contains characters significant to the shell, | 
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| 226 | and these have to be escaped correctly, also it is not possible to use | 
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| 227 | "^" or "$" in the command. Here is the option to prefix "new-" to the | 
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| 228 | new GCC installed programs:</p> | 
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| 229 | <blockquote><code> | 
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| 230 | --program-transform-name='s,\\\\(.*\\\\),new-\\\\1,' | 
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| 231 | </code></blockquote> | 
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| 232 | <p>With the above <code>--prefix</code> option, that will install the new | 
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| 233 | GCC programs into <code>/usr/local/gcc/bin</code> with names prefixed | 
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| 234 | by "new-". You can use <code>--program-transform-name</code> if you | 
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| 235 | have multiple versions of GCC, and wish to be sure about which version | 
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| 236 | you are invoking.</p> | 
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| 237 |  | 
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| 238 | <p>If you use <code>--prefix</code>, GCC may have difficulty locating a GNU | 
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| 239 | assembler or linker on your system, <a href="#gas">GCC can not find GNU | 
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| 240 | as/GNU ld</a> explains how to deal with this.</p> | 
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| 241 |  | 
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| 242 | <p>Another option that may be easier is to use the | 
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| 243 | <code>--program-prefix=</code> or <code>--program-suffix=</code> | 
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| 244 | options to configure. So if you're installing GCC 2.95.2 and don't | 
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| 245 | want to disturb the current version of GCC in | 
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| 246 | <code>/usr/local/bin/</code>, you could do</p> | 
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| 247 | <blockquote><code> | 
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| 248 | configure --program-suffix=-2.95.2 <other configure options> | 
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| 249 | </code></blockquote> | 
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| 250 | <p>This should result in GCC being installed as | 
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| 251 | <code>/usr/local/bin/gcc-2.95.2</code> instead of | 
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| 252 | <code>/usr/local/bin/gcc</code>.</p> | 
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| 253 |  | 
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| 254 | <hr /> | 
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| 255 | <h2><a name="rpath">Dynamic linker is unable to find GCC libraries</a></h2> | 
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| 256 |  | 
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| 257 | <p>This problem manifests itself by programs not finding shared | 
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| 258 | libraries they depend on when the programs are started.  Note this | 
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| 259 | problem often manifests itself with failures in the libio/libstdc++ | 
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| 260 | tests after configuring with <code>--enable-shared</code> and building GCC.</p> | 
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| 261 |  | 
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| 262 | <p>GCC does not specify a runpath so that the dynamic linker can find | 
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| 263 | dynamic libraries at runtime.</p> | 
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| 264 |  | 
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| 265 | <p>The short explanation is that if you always pass a -R option to the | 
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| 266 | linker, then your programs become dependent on directories which | 
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| 267 | may be NFS mounted, and programs may hang unnecessarily when an | 
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| 268 | NFS server goes down.</p> | 
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| 269 |  | 
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| 270 | <p>The problem is not programs that do require the directories; those | 
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| 271 | programs are going to hang no matter what you do.  The problem is | 
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| 272 | programs that do not require the directories.</p> | 
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| 273 |  | 
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| 274 | <p>SunOS effectively always passed a <code>-R</code> option for every | 
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| 275 | <code>-L</code> option; this was a bad idea, and so it was removed for | 
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| 276 | Solaris.  We should not recreate it.</p> | 
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| 277 |  | 
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| 278 | <p>However, if you feel you really need such an option to be passed | 
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| 279 | automatically to the linker, you may add it to the GCC specs file. | 
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| 280 | This file can be found in the same directory that contains cc1 (run | 
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| 281 | <code>gcc -print-prog-name=cc1</code> to find it).  You may add linker | 
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| 282 | flags such as <code>-R</code> or <code>-rpath</code>, depending on | 
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| 283 | platform and linker, to the <code>*link</code> or <code>*lib</code> | 
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| 284 | specs.</p> | 
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| 285 |  | 
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| 286 | <p>Another alternative is to install a wrapper script around gcc, g++ | 
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| 287 | or ld that adds the appropriate directory to the environment variable | 
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| 288 | <code>LD_RUN_PATH</code> or equivalent (again, it's | 
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| 289 | platform-dependent).</p> | 
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| 290 |  | 
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| 291 | <p>Yet another option, that works on a few platforms, is to hard-code | 
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| 292 | the full pathname of the library into its soname.  This can only be | 
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| 293 | accomplished by modifying the appropriate <tt>.ml</tt> file within | 
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| 294 | <tt>libstdc++/config</tt> (and also <tt>libg++/config</tt>, if you are | 
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| 295 | building libg++), so that <code>$(libdir)/</code> appears just before | 
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| 296 | the library name in <code>-soname</code> or <code>-h</code> options.</p> | 
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| 297 |  | 
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| 298 | <hr /> | 
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| 299 | <h2><a name="gas">GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld</a></h2> | 
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| 300 | <p>GCC searches the PATH for an assembler and a loader, but it only | 
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| 301 | does so after searching a directory list hard-coded in the GCC | 
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| 302 | executables.  Since, on most platforms, the hard-coded list includes | 
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| 303 | directories in which the system assembler and loader can be found, you | 
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| 304 | may have to take one of the following actions to arrange that GCC uses | 
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| 305 | the GNU versions of those programs.</p> | 
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| 306 |  | 
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| 307 | <p>To ensure that GCC finds the GNU assembler (the GNU loader), which | 
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| 308 | are required by <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html">some | 
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| 309 | configurations</a>, | 
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| 310 | you should configure these with the same --prefix option as you used | 
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| 311 | for GCC.  Then build & install GNU as (GNU ld) and proceed with | 
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| 312 | building GCC.</p> | 
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| 313 |  | 
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| 314 | <p>Another alternative is to create links to GNU as and ld in any of | 
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| 315 | the directories printed by the command `<tt>gcc -print-search-dirs | | 
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| 316 | grep '^programs:'</tt>'.  The link to `<tt>ld</tt>' should be named | 
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| 317 | `<tt>real-ld</tt>' if `<tt>ld</tt>' already exists.  If such links do | 
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| 318 | not exist while you're compiling GCC, you may have to create them in | 
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| 319 | the build directories too, within the <tt>gcc</tt> directory | 
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| 320 | <em>and</em> in all the <tt>gcc/stage*</tt> subdirectories.</p> | 
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| 321 |  | 
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| 322 | <p>GCC 2.95 allows you to specify the full pathname of the assembler | 
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| 323 | and the linker to use.  The configure flags are | 
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| 324 | `<tt>--with-as=/path/to/as</tt>' and `<tt>--with-ld=/path/to/ld</tt>'. | 
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| 325 | GCC will try to use these pathnames before looking for `<tt>as</tt>' | 
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| 326 | or `<tt>(real-)ld</tt>' in the standard search dirs.  If, at | 
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| 327 | configure-time, the specified programs are found to be GNU utilities, | 
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| 328 | `<tt>--with-gnu-as</tt>' and `<tt>--with-gnu-ld</tt>' need not be | 
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| 329 | used; these flags will be auto-detected.  One drawback of this option | 
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| 330 | is that it won't allow you to override the search path for assembler | 
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| 331 | and linker with command-line options <tt>-B/path/</tt> if the | 
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| 332 | specified filenames exist.</p> | 
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| 333 |  | 
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| 334 | <hr /> | 
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| 335 | <h2><a name="environ">cpp: Usage:... Error</a></h2> | 
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| 336 |  | 
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| 337 | <p>If you get an error like this when building GCC (particularly when building | 
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| 338 | __mulsi3), then you likely have a problem with your environment variables.</p> | 
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| 339 | <pre> | 
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| 340 | cpp: Usage: /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-unknown-linux-gnulibc1/2.7.2.3/cpp | 
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| 341 | [switches] input output | 
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| 342 | </pre> | 
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| 343 | <p>First look for an explicit '.' in either LIBRARY_PATH or GCC_EXEC_PREFIX | 
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| 344 | from your environment.  If you do not find an explicit '.', look for | 
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| 345 | an empty pathname in those variables.  Note that ':' at either the start | 
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| 346 | or end of these variables is an implicit '.' and will cause problems.</p> | 
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| 347 |  | 
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| 348 | <p>Also note '::' in these paths will also cause similar problems.</p> | 
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| 349 |  | 
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| 350 |  | 
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| 351 | <hr /> | 
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| 352 | <h2><a name="optimizing">Optimizing the compiler itself</a></h2> | 
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| 353 |  | 
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| 354 | <p>If you want to test a particular optimization option, it's useful to try | 
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| 355 | bootstrapping the compiler with that option turned on.  For example, to | 
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| 356 | test the <code>-fssa</code> option, you could bootstrap like this:</p> | 
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| 357 |  | 
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| 358 | <pre>make BOOT_CFLAGS="-O2 -fssa" bootstrap</pre> | 
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| 359 |  | 
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| 360 | <hr /> | 
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| 361 | <h2><a name="iconv">Why does <code>libiconv</code> get linked into <code>jc1</code> on Solaris?</a></h2> | 
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| 362 |  | 
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| 363 | <p>The Java front end requires <code>iconv</code>.  If the compiler | 
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| 364 | used to bootstrap GCC finds <code>libiconv</code> (because the GNU | 
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| 365 | version of <code>libiconv</code> has been installed in the same prefix | 
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| 366 | as the bootstrap compiler), but the newly built GCC does not find the | 
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| 367 | library (because it will be installed with a different prefix), then a | 
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| 368 | link-time error will occur when building <code>jc1</code>.  This | 
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| 369 | problem does not show up so often on platforms that have | 
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| 370 | <code>libiconv</code> in a default location (like | 
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| 371 | <code>/usr/lib</code>) because then both compilers can find a library | 
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| 372 | named <code>libiconv</code>, even though it is a different | 
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| 373 | library.</p> | 
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| 374 |  | 
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| 375 | <p>Using <code>--disable-nls</code> at configure-time does not | 
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| 376 | prevent this problem because <code>jc1</code> uses | 
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| 377 | <code>iconv</code> even in that case.  Solutions include temporarily | 
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| 378 | removing the GNU <code>libiconv</code>, copying it to a default | 
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| 379 | location such as <code>/usr/lib/</code>, and using | 
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| 380 | <code>--enable-languages</code> at configure-time to disable Java.</p> | 
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| 381 |  | 
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| 382 | <hr /> | 
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| 383 | <a name="testsuite"></a> | 
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| 384 | <h1>Testsuite problems</h1> | 
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| 385 |  | 
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| 386 | <h2><a name="testoptions">How do I pass flags like | 
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| 387 | <code>-fnew-abi</code> to the testsuite?</a></h2> | 
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| 388 |  | 
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| 389 | <p>If you invoke <code>runtest</code> directly, you can use the | 
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| 390 | <code>--tool_opts</code> option, e.g:</p> | 
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| 391 | <pre> | 
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| 392 | runtest --tool_opts "-fnew-abi -fno-honor-std" <other options> | 
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| 393 | </pre> | 
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| 394 | <p>Or, if you use <code>make check</code> you can use the | 
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| 395 | <code>make</code> variable <code>RUNTESTFLAGS</code>, e.g:</p> | 
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| 396 | <pre> | 
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| 397 | make RUNTESTFLAGS="--tool_opts '-fnew-abi -fno-honor-std'" check-g++ | 
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| 398 | </pre> | 
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| 399 |  | 
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| 400 | <hr /> | 
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| 401 | <h2><a name="multipletests"> How can I run the test suite with multiple options? </a></h2> | 
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| 402 |  | 
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| 403 | <p>If you invoke <code>runtest</code> directly, you can use the | 
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| 404 | <code>--target_board</code> option, e.g:</p> | 
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| 405 | <pre> | 
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| 406 | runtest --target_board "unix{-fPIC,-fpic,}" <other options> | 
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| 407 | </pre> | 
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| 408 | <p>Or, if you use <code>make check</code> you can use the | 
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| 409 | <code>make</code> variable <code>RUNTESTFLAGS</code>, e.g:</p> | 
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| 410 | <pre> | 
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| 411 | make RUNTESTFLAGS="--target_board 'unix{-fPIC,-fpic,}'" check-gcc | 
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| 412 | </pre> | 
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| 413 | <p>Either of these examples will run the tests three times.   Once | 
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| 414 | with <code>-fPIC</code>, once with <code>-fpic</code>, and once with | 
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| 415 | no additional flags.</p> | 
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| 416 |  | 
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| 417 | <p>This technique is particularly useful on multilibbed targets.</p> | 
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| 418 |  | 
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| 419 | <hr /> | 
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| 420 | <a name="old"></a> | 
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| 421 | <h1>Older versions of GCC and EGCS</h1> | 
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| 422 |  | 
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| 423 | <h2><a name="2.95sstream">Is there a stringstream / sstream for GCC 2.95.2?</a></h2> | 
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| 424 |  | 
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| 425 | <p>Yes, it's at: | 
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| 426 | <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/msg00700/sstream"> | 
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| 427 | http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/msg00700/sstream</a>.</p> | 
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| 428 |  | 
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| 429 | <hr /> | 
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| 430 | <a name="misc"></a> | 
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| 431 | <h1>Miscellaneous</h1> | 
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| 432 |  | 
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| 433 |  | 
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| 434 | <h2><a name="friend">Friend Templates</a></h2> | 
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| 435 |  | 
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| 436 | <p>In order to make a specialization of a template function a friend | 
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| 437 | of a (possibly template) class, you must explicitly state that the | 
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| 438 | friend function is a template, by appending angle brackets to its | 
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| 439 | name, and this template function must have been declared already. | 
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| 440 | Here's an example:</p> | 
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| 441 | <pre> | 
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| 442 | template <typename T> class foo { | 
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| 443 | friend void bar(foo<T>); | 
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| 444 | } | 
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| 445 | </pre> | 
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| 446 | <p>The above declaration declares a non-template function named | 
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| 447 | <code>bar</code>, so it must be explicitly defined for <b>each</b> | 
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| 448 | specialization of <code>foo</code>.  A template definition of <code>bar</code> | 
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| 449 | won't do, because it is unrelated with the non-template declaration | 
|---|
| 450 | above.  So you'd have to end up writing:</p> | 
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| 451 | <pre> | 
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| 452 | void bar(foo<int>) { /* ... */ } | 
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| 453 | void bar(foo<void>) { /* ... */ } | 
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| 454 | </pre> | 
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| 455 | <p>If you meant <code>bar</code> to be a template function, you should | 
|---|
| 456 | have forward-declared it as follows.  Note that, since the template | 
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| 457 | function declaration refers to the template class, the template class | 
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| 458 | must be forward-declared too:</p> | 
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| 459 | <pre> | 
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| 460 | template <typename T> | 
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| 461 | class foo; | 
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| 462 |  | 
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| 463 | template <typename T> | 
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| 464 | void bar(foo<T>); | 
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| 465 |  | 
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| 466 | template <typename T> | 
|---|
| 467 | class foo { | 
|---|
| 468 | friend void bar<>(foo<T>); | 
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| 469 | }; | 
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| 470 |  | 
|---|
| 471 | template <typename T> | 
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| 472 | void bar(foo<T>) { /* ... */ } | 
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| 473 | </pre> | 
|---|
| 474 | <p>In this case, the template argument list could be left empty, | 
|---|
| 475 | because it can be implicitly deduced from the function arguments, but | 
|---|
| 476 | the angle brackets must be present, otherwise the declaration will be | 
|---|
| 477 | taken as a non-template function.  Furthermore, in some cases, you may | 
|---|
| 478 | have to explicitly specify the template arguments, to remove | 
|---|
| 479 | ambiguity.</p> | 
|---|
| 480 |  | 
|---|
| 481 | <p>An error in the last public comment draft of the ANSI/ISO C++ | 
|---|
| 482 | Standard and the fact that previous releases of GCC would accept such | 
|---|
| 483 | friend declarations as template declarations has led people to believe | 
|---|
| 484 | that the forward declaration was not necessary, but, according to the | 
|---|
| 485 | final version of the Standard, it is.</p> | 
|---|
| 486 |  | 
|---|
| 487 |  | 
|---|
| 488 | <hr /> | 
|---|
| 489 | <h2><a name="dso"><code>dynamic_cast</code>, <code>throw</code>, <code>typeid</code> don't work with shared libraries</a></h2> | 
|---|
| 490 |  | 
|---|
| 491 | <p>The new C++ ABI in the GCC 3.0 series uses address comparisons, | 
|---|
| 492 | rather than string compares, to determine type equality.  This leads | 
|---|
| 493 | to better performance.  Like other objects that have to be present in the | 
|---|
| 494 | final executable, these <code>std::type_info</code> objects have what | 
|---|
| 495 | is called vague linkage because they are not tightly bound to any one | 
|---|
| 496 | particular translation unit (object file).  The compiler has to emit | 
|---|
| 497 | them in any translation unit that requires their presence, and then | 
|---|
| 498 | rely on the linking and loading process to make sure that only one of | 
|---|
| 499 | them is active in the final executable.  With static linking all of | 
|---|
| 500 | these symbols are resolved at link time, but with dynamic linking, | 
|---|
| 501 | further resolution occurs at load time.  You have to ensure that | 
|---|
| 502 | objects within a shared library are resolved against objects in the | 
|---|
| 503 | executable and other shared libraries.</p> | 
|---|
| 504 |  | 
|---|
| 505 | <ul> | 
|---|
| 506 | <li>For a program which is linked against a shared library, no additional | 
|---|
| 507 | precautions are needed.</li> | 
|---|
| 508 |  | 
|---|
| 509 | <li>You cannot create a shared library with the "<code>-Bsymbolic</code>" | 
|---|
| 510 | option, as that prevents the resolution described above.</li> | 
|---|
| 511 |  | 
|---|
| 512 | <li>If you use <code>dlopen</code> to explicitly load code from a shared | 
|---|
| 513 | library, you must do several things. First, export global symbols from | 
|---|
| 514 | the executable by linking it with the "<code>-E</code>" flag (you will | 
|---|
| 515 | have to specify this as "<code>-Wl,-E</code>" if you are invoking | 
|---|
| 516 | the linker in the usual manner from the compiler driver, <code>g++</code>). | 
|---|
| 517 | You must also make the external symbols in the loaded library | 
|---|
| 518 | available for subsequent libraries by providing the <code>RTLD_GLOBAL</code> | 
|---|
| 519 | flag to <code>dlopen</code>.  The symbol resolution can be immediate or | 
|---|
| 520 | lazy.</li> | 
|---|
| 521 |  | 
|---|
| 522 | </ul> | 
|---|
| 523 |  | 
|---|
| 524 | <p>Template instantiations are another, user visible, case of objects | 
|---|
| 525 | with vague linkage, which needs similar resolution. If you do not take | 
|---|
| 526 | the above precautions, you may discover that a template instantiation | 
|---|
| 527 | with the same argument list, but instantiated in multiple translation | 
|---|
| 528 | units, has several addresses, depending in which translation unit the | 
|---|
| 529 | address is taken. (This is <em>not</em> an exhaustive list of the kind | 
|---|
| 530 | of objects which have vague linkage and are expected to be resolved | 
|---|
| 531 | during linking & loading.)</p> | 
|---|
| 532 |  | 
|---|
| 533 | <p>If you are worried about different objects with the same name | 
|---|
| 534 | colliding during the linking or loading process, then you should use | 
|---|
| 535 | namespaces to disambiguate them. Giving distinct objects with global | 
|---|
| 536 | linkage the same name is a violation of the One Definition Rule (ODR) | 
|---|
| 537 | [basic.def.odr].</p> | 
|---|
| 538 |  | 
|---|
| 539 | <p>For more details about the way that GCC implements these and other | 
|---|
| 540 | C++ features, please read the <a | 
|---|
| 541 | href="http://www.codesourcery.com/cxx-abi/">ABI specification</a>. | 
|---|
| 542 | Note the <code>std::type_info</code> objects which <i>must</i> be | 
|---|
| 543 | resolved all begin with "_ZTS". Refer to <code>ld</code>'s | 
|---|
| 544 | documentation for a description of the "<code>-E</code>" & | 
|---|
| 545 | "<code>-Bsymbolic</code>" flags.</p> | 
|---|
| 546 |  | 
|---|
| 547 | <hr /> | 
|---|
| 548 | <h2><a name="generated_files">Why do I need autoconf, bison, xgettext, automake, etc?</a></h2> | 
|---|
| 549 |  | 
|---|
| 550 | <p>If you're using diffs up dated from one snapshot to the next, or | 
|---|
| 551 | if you're using the CVS repository, you may need several additional programs | 
|---|
| 552 | to build GCC.</p> | 
|---|
| 553 |  | 
|---|
| 554 | <p>These include, but are not necessarily limited to autoconf, automake, | 
|---|
| 555 | bison, and xgettext.</p> | 
|---|
| 556 |  | 
|---|
| 557 | <p>This is necessary because neither diff nor cvs keep timestamps | 
|---|
| 558 | correct.  This causes problems for generated files as "make" may think | 
|---|
| 559 | those generated files are out of date and try to regenerate them.</p> | 
|---|
| 560 |  | 
|---|
| 561 | <p>An easy way to work around this problem is to use the <code>gcc_update | 
|---|
| 562 | </code> script in the contrib subdirectory of GCC, which handles this | 
|---|
| 563 | transparently without requiring installation of any additional tools. | 
|---|
| 564 | (Note: Up to and including GCC 2.95 this script was called <code>egcs_update | 
|---|
| 565 | </code>.)</p> | 
|---|
| 566 |  | 
|---|
| 567 |  | 
|---|
| 568 | <p>When building from diffs or CVS or if you modified some sources, | 
|---|
| 569 | you may also need to obtain development versions of some GNU tools, as | 
|---|
| 570 | the production versions do not necessarily handle all features needed | 
|---|
| 571 | to rebuild GCC.</p> | 
|---|
| 572 |  | 
|---|
| 573 | <p>In general, the current versions of these tools from <a | 
|---|
| 574 | href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/</a> will work. | 
|---|
| 575 | At present, Autoconf 2.50 is not supported, and you will need to use | 
|---|
| 576 | Autoconf 2.13; work is in progress to fix this problem.  Also look at | 
|---|
| 577 | <a href="ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/infrastructure/"> | 
|---|
| 578 | ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/infrastructure/</a> for any special versions | 
|---|
| 579 | of packages.</p> | 
|---|
| 580 |  | 
|---|
| 581 |  | 
|---|
| 582 | <hr /> | 
|---|
| 583 | <h2><a name="picflag-needed">Why can't I build a shared library?</a></h2> | 
|---|
| 584 |  | 
|---|
| 585 | <p>When building a shared library you may get an error message from the | 
|---|
| 586 | linker like `assert pure-text failed:' or `DP relative code in file'.</p> | 
|---|
| 587 |  | 
|---|
| 588 | <p>This kind of error occurs when you've failed to provide proper flags | 
|---|
| 589 | to gcc when linking the shared library. </p> | 
|---|
| 590 |  | 
|---|
| 591 | <p>You can get this error even if all the .o files for the shared library were | 
|---|
| 592 | compiled with the proper PIC option.  When building a shared library, gcc will | 
|---|
| 593 | compile additional code to be included in the library.  That additional code | 
|---|
| 594 | must also be compiled with the proper PIC option.</p> | 
|---|
| 595 |  | 
|---|
| 596 | <p>Adding the proper PIC option (<tt>-fpic</tt> or <tt>-fPIC</tt>) to the link | 
|---|
| 597 | line which creates the shared library will fix this problem on targets that | 
|---|
| 598 | support PIC in this manner.  For example:</p> | 
|---|
| 599 | <pre> | 
|---|
| 600 | gcc -c -fPIC myfile.c | 
|---|
| 601 | gcc -shared -o libmyfile.so -fPIC myfile.o | 
|---|
| 602 | </pre> | 
|---|
| 603 |  | 
|---|
| 604 |  | 
|---|
| 605 | <hr /> | 
|---|
| 606 | <h2><a name="vtables">When building C++, the linker says my constructors, destructors or virtual tables are undefined, but I defined them</a></h2> | 
|---|
| 607 |  | 
|---|
| 608 | <p>The ISO C++ Standard specifies that all virtual methods of a class | 
|---|
| 609 | that are not pure-virtual must be defined, but does not require any | 
|---|
| 610 | diagnostic for violations of this rule [class.virtual]/8.  Based on | 
|---|
| 611 | this assumption, GCC will only emit the implicitly defined | 
|---|
| 612 | constructors, the assignment operator, the destructor and the virtual | 
|---|
| 613 | table of a class in the translation unit that defines its first such | 
|---|
| 614 | non-inline method.</p> | 
|---|
| 615 |  | 
|---|
| 616 | <p>Therefore, if you fail to define this particular method, the linker | 
|---|
| 617 | may complain about the lack of definitions for apparently unrelated | 
|---|
| 618 | symbols.  Unfortunately, in order to improve this error message, it | 
|---|
| 619 | might be necessary to change the linker, and this can't always be | 
|---|
| 620 | done.</p> | 
|---|
| 621 |  | 
|---|
| 622 | <p>The solution is to ensure that all virtual methods that are not | 
|---|
| 623 | pure are defined.  Note that a destructor must be defined even if it | 
|---|
| 624 | is declared pure-virtual [class.dtor]/7.</p> | 
|---|
| 625 |  | 
|---|
| 626 |  | 
|---|
| 627 | <hr /> | 
|---|
| 628 | <h2><a name="incremental">Will GCC someday include an incremental linker?</a></h2> | 
|---|
| 629 |  | 
|---|
| 630 | <p>Incremental linking is part of the linker, not the compiler. As | 
|---|
| 631 | such, GCC doesn't have anything to do with incremental linking. | 
|---|
| 632 | Depending on what platform you use, it may be possible to tell GCC to | 
|---|
| 633 | use the platform's native linker (e.g., Solaris' ild(1)).</p> | 
|---|
| 634 |  | 
|---|
| 635 |  | 
|---|
| 636 | </body> | 
|---|
| 637 | </html> | 
|---|