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author | Marc Espie <espie@cvs.openbsd.org> | 2003-11-29 12:38:12 +0000 |
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committer | Marc Espie <espie@cvs.openbsd.org> | 2003-11-29 12:38:12 +0000 |
commit | dd45f55f0aeaddc62ea7ab9e7f5a8bcb3c61f66f (patch) | |
tree | 0cb5b05cc067014c25bfc374e9cae4cf0590168b /gnu/usr.bin/gcc/FAQ | |
parent | 3d78df1b892943dfd1e2b6bb3ec0397627e1f572 (diff) |
Import gcc-3.3.2. Only the compiler. ada frontend removed for space
considerations.
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diff --git a/gnu/usr.bin/gcc/FAQ b/gnu/usr.bin/gcc/FAQ new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..571b83ee360 --- /dev/null +++ b/gnu/usr.bin/gcc/FAQ @@ -0,0 +1,588 @@ + + GCC Frequently Asked Questions + + The latest version of this document is always available at + [1]http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html. + + This FAQ tries to answer specific questions concerning GCC. For + general information regarding C, C++, resp. Fortran please check the + [2]comp.lang.c FAQ, [3]comp.std.c++ FAQ, and the [4]Fortran + Information page. + + Other GCC-related FAQs: [5]libstdc++-v3, and [6]GCJ. + _________________________________________________________________ + + Questions + + 1. [7]General information + 1. [8]What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS? + 2. [9]What is an open development model? + 3. [10]How do I get a bug fixed or a feature added? + 4. [11]Does GCC work on my platform? + 2. [12]Installation + 1. [13]How to install multiple versions of GCC + 2. [14]Dynamic linker is unable to find GCC libraries + 3. [15]libstdc++/libio tests fail badly with --enable-shared + 4. [16]GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld + 5. [17]cpp: Usage:... Error + 6. [18]Optimizing the compiler itself + 7. [19]Why does libiconv get linked into jc1 on Solaris? + 3. [20]Testsuite problems + 1. [21]How do I pass flags like -fnew-abi to the testsuite? + 2. [22]How can I run the test suite with multiple options? + 4. [23]Older versions of GCC + 1. [24]Is there a stringstream / sstream for GCC 2.95.2? + 5. [25]Miscellaneous + 1. [26]Friend Templates + 2. [27]dynamic_cast, throw, typeid don't work with shared + libraries + 3. [28]Why do I need autoconf, bison, xgettext, automake, etc? + 4. [29]Why can't I build a shared library? + 5. [30]When building C++, the linker says my constructors, + destructors or virtual tables are undefined, but I defined + them + 6. [31]Will GCC someday include an incremental linker? + _________________________________________________________________ + + General information + +What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS? + + In 1990/1991 gcc version 1 had reached a point of stability. For the + targets it could support, it worked well. It had limitations inherent + in its design that would be difficult to resolve, so a major effort + was made to resolve those limitations and gcc version 2 was the + result. + + When we had gcc2 in a useful state, development efforts on gcc1 + stopped and we all concentrated on making gcc2 better than gcc1 could + ever be. This is the kind of step forward we wanted to make with the + EGCS project when it was formed in 1997. + + In April 1999 the Free Software Foundation officially halted + development on the gcc2 compiler and appointed the EGCS project as the + official GCC maintainers. The net result was a single project which + carries forward GCC development under the ultimate control of the + [32]GCC Steering Committee. + _________________________________________________________________ + +What is an open development model? + + We are using a bazaar style [33][1] approach to GCC development: we + make snapshots publicly available to anyone who wants to try them; we + welcome anyone to join the development mailing list. All of the + discussions on the development mailing list are available via the web. + We're going to be making releases with a much higher frequency than + they have been made in the past. + + In addition to weekly snapshots of the GCC development sources, we + have the sources readable from a CVS server by anyone. Furthermore we + are using remote CVS to allow remote maintainers write access to the + sources. + + There have been many potential GCC developers who were not able to + participate in GCC development in the past. We want these people to + help in any way they can; we ultimately want GCC to be the best + compiler in the world. + + A compiler is a complicated piece of software, there will still be + strong central maintainers who will reject patches, who will demand + documentation of implementations, and who will keep the level of + quality as high as it is today. Code that could use wider testing may + be integrated--code that is simply ill-conceived won't be. + + GCC is not the first piece of software to use this open development + process; FreeBSD, the Emacs lisp repository, and the Linux kernel are + a few examples of the bazaar style of development. + + With GCC, we are adding new features and optimizations at a rate that + has not been done since the creation of gcc2; these additions + inevitably have a temporarily destabilizing effect. With the help of + developers working together with this bazaar style development, the + resulting stability and quality levels will be better than we've had + before. + + [1] We've been discussing different development models a lot over + the past few months. The paper which started all of this introduced + two terms: A cathedral development model versus a bazaar + development model. The paper is written by Eric S. Raymond, it is + called ``The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. The paper is a useful + starting point for discussions. + _________________________________________________________________ + +How do I get a bug fixed or a feature added? + + There are lots of ways to get something fixed. The list below may be + incomplete, but it covers many of the common cases. These are listed + roughly in order of decreasing difficulty for the average GCC user, + meaning someone who is not skilled in the internals of GCC, and where + difficulty is measured in terms of the time required to fix the bug. + No alternative is better than any other; each has its benefits and + disadvantages. + * Fix it yourself. This alternative will probably bring results, if + you work hard enough, but will probably take a lot of time, and, + depending on the quality of your work and the perceived benefits + of your changes, your code may or may not ever make it into an + official release of GCC. + * [34]Report the problem to the GCC bug tracking system and hope + that someone will be kind enough to fix it for you. While this is + certainly possible, and often happens, there is no guarantee that + it will. You should not expect the same response from this method + that you would see from a commercial support organization since + the people who read GCC bug reports, if they choose to help you, + will be volunteering their time. + * Hire someone to fix it for you. There are various companies and + individuals providing support for GCC. This alternative costs + money, but is relatively likely to get results. + _________________________________________________________________ + +Does GCC work on my platform? + + The host/target specific installation notes for GCC include + information about known problems with installing or using GCC on + particular platforms. These are included in the sources for a release + in INSTALL/specific.html, and the [35]latest version is always + available at the GCC web site. Reports of [36]successful builds for + several versions of GCC are also available at the web site. + _________________________________________________________________ + + Installation + +How to install multiple versions of GCC + + It may be desirable to install multiple versions of the compiler on + the same system. This can be done by using different prefix paths at + configure time and a few symlinks. + + Basically, configure the two compilers with different --prefix + options, then build and install each compiler. Assume you want "gcc" + to be the latest compiler and available in /usr/local/bin; also assume + that you want "gcc2" to be the older gcc2 compiler and also available + in /usr/local/bin. + + The easiest way to do this is to configure the new GCC with + --prefix=/usr/local/gcc and the older gcc2 with + --prefix=/usr/local/gcc2. Build and install both compilers. Then make + a symlink from /usr/local/bin/gcc to /usr/local/gcc/bin/gcc and from + /usr/local/bin/gcc2 to /usr/local/gcc2/bin/gcc. Create similar links + for the "g++", "c++" and "g77" compiler drivers. + + An alternative to using symlinks is to configure with a + --program-transform-name option. This option specifies a sed command + to process installed program names with. Using it you can, for + instance, have all the new GCC programs installed as "new-gcc" and the + like. You will still have to specify different --prefix options for + new GCC and old GCC, because it is only the executable program names + that are transformed. The difference is that you (as administrator) do + not have to set up symlinks, but must specify additional directories + in your (as a user) PATH. A complication with --program-transform-name + is that the sed command invariably contains characters significant to + the shell, and these have to be escaped correctly, also it is not + possible to use "^" or "$" in the command. Here is the option to + prefix "new-" to the new GCC installed programs: + + --program-transform-name='s,\\\\(.*\\\\),new-\\\\1,' + + With the above --prefix option, that will install the new GCC programs + into /usr/local/gcc/bin with names prefixed by "new-". You can use + --program-transform-name if you have multiple versions of GCC, and + wish to be sure about which version you are invoking. + + If you use --prefix, GCC may have difficulty locating a GNU assembler + or linker on your system, [37]GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld explains + how to deal with this. + + Another option that may be easier is to use the --program-prefix= or + --program-suffix= options to configure. So if you're installing GCC + 2.95.2 and don't want to disturb the current version of GCC in + /usr/local/bin/, you could do + + configure --program-suffix=-2.95.2 <other configure options> + + This should result in GCC being installed as /usr/local/bin/gcc-2.95.2 + instead of /usr/local/bin/gcc. + _________________________________________________________________ + +Dynamic linker is unable to find GCC libraries + + This problem manifests itself by programs not finding shared libraries + they depend on when the programs are started. Note this problem often + manifests itself with failures in the libio/libstdc++ tests after + configuring with --enable-shared and building GCC. + + GCC does not specify a runpath so that the dynamic linker can find + dynamic libraries at runtime. + + The short explanation is that if you always pass a -R option to the + linker, then your programs become dependent on directories which may + be NFS mounted, and programs may hang unnecessarily when an NFS server + goes down. + + The problem is not programs that do require the directories; those + programs are going to hang no matter what you do. The problem is + programs that do not require the directories. + + SunOS effectively always passed a -R option for every -L option; this + was a bad idea, and so it was removed for Solaris. We should not + recreate it. + + However, if you feel you really need such an option to be passed + automatically to the linker, you may add it to the GCC specs file. + This file can be found in the same directory that contains cc1 (run + gcc -print-prog-name=cc1 to find it). You may add linker flags such as + -R or -rpath, depending on platform and linker, to the *link or *lib + specs. + + Another alternative is to install a wrapper script around gcc, g++ or + ld that adds the appropriate directory to the environment variable + LD_RUN_PATH or equivalent (again, it's platform-dependent). + + Yet another option, that works on a few platforms, is to hard-code the + full pathname of the library into its soname. This can only be + accomplished by modifying the appropriate .ml file within + libstdc++/config (and also libg++/config, if you are building libg++), + so that $(libdir)/ appears just before the library name in -soname or + -h options. + _________________________________________________________________ + +GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld + + GCC searches the PATH for an assembler and a loader, but it only does + so after searching a directory list hard-coded in the GCC executables. + Since, on most platforms, the hard-coded list includes directories in + which the system assembler and loader can be found, you may have to + take one of the following actions to arrange that GCC uses the GNU + versions of those programs. + + To ensure that GCC finds the GNU assembler (the GNU loader), which are + required by [38]some configurations, you should configure these with + the same --prefix option as you used for GCC. Then build & install GNU + as (GNU ld) and proceed with building GCC. + + Another alternative is to create links to GNU as and ld in any of the + directories printed by the command `gcc -print-search-dirs | grep + '^programs:''. The link to `ld' should be named `real-ld' if `ld' + already exists. If such links do not exist while you're compiling GCC, + you may have to create them in the build directories too, within the + gcc directory and in all the gcc/stage* subdirectories. + + GCC 2.95 allows you to specify the full pathname of the assembler and + the linker to use. The configure flags are `--with-as=/path/to/as' and + `--with-ld=/path/to/ld'. GCC will try to use these pathnames before + looking for `as' or `(real-)ld' in the standard search dirs. If, at + configure-time, the specified programs are found to be GNU utilities, + `--with-gnu-as' and `--with-gnu-ld' need not be used; these flags will + be auto-detected. One drawback of this option is that it won't allow + you to override the search path for assembler and linker with + command-line options -B/path/ if the specified filenames exist. + _________________________________________________________________ + +cpp: Usage:... Error + + If you get an error like this when building GCC (particularly when + building __mulsi3), then you likely have a problem with your + environment variables. + cpp: Usage: /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-unknown-linux-gnulibc1/2.7.2.3/cpp + [switches] input output + + First look for an explicit '.' in either LIBRARY_PATH or + GCC_EXEC_PREFIX from your environment. If you do not find an explicit + '.', look for an empty pathname in those variables. Note that ':' at + either the start or end of these variables is an implicit '.' and will + cause problems. + + Also note '::' in these paths will also cause similar problems. + _________________________________________________________________ + +Optimizing the compiler itself + + If you want to test a particular optimization option, it's useful to + try bootstrapping the compiler with that option turned on. For + example, to test the -fssa option, you could bootstrap like this: +make BOOT_CFLAGS="-O2 -fssa" bootstrap + _________________________________________________________________ + +Why does libiconv get linked into jc1 on Solaris? + + The Java front end requires iconv. If the compiler used to bootstrap + GCC finds libiconv (because the GNU version of libiconv has been + installed in the same prefix as the bootstrap compiler), but the newly + built GCC does not find the library (because it will be installed with + a different prefix), then a link-time error will occur when building + jc1. This problem does not show up so often on platforms that have + libiconv in a default location (like /usr/lib) because then both + compilers can find a library named libiconv, even though it is a + different library. + + Using --disable-nls at configure-time does not prevent this problem + because jc1 uses iconv even in that case. Solutions include + temporarily removing the GNU libiconv, copying it to a default + location such as /usr/lib/, and using --enable-languages at + configure-time to disable Java. + _________________________________________________________________ + + Testsuite problems + +How do I pass flags like -fnew-abi to the testsuite? + + If you invoke runtest directly, you can use the --tool_opts option, + e.g: + runtest --tool_opts "-fnew-abi -fno-honor-std" <other options> + + Or, if you use make check you can use the make variable RUNTESTFLAGS, + e.g: + make RUNTESTFLAGS="--tool_opts '-fnew-abi -fno-honor-std'" check-g++ + _________________________________________________________________ + +How can I run the test suite with multiple options? + + If you invoke runtest directly, you can use the --target_board option, + e.g: + runtest --target_board "unix{-fPIC,-fpic,}" <other options> + + Or, if you use make check you can use the make variable RUNTESTFLAGS, + e.g: + make RUNTESTFLAGS="--target_board 'unix{-fPIC,-fpic,}'" check-gcc + + Either of these examples will run the tests three times. Once with + -fPIC, once with -fpic, and once with no additional flags. + + This technique is particularly useful on multilibbed targets. + _________________________________________________________________ + + Older versions of GCC and EGCS + +Is there a stringstream / sstream for GCC 2.95.2? + + Yes, it's at: + [39]http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/msg00700/sstream. + _________________________________________________________________ + + Miscellaneous + +Friend Templates + + In order to make a specialization of a template function a friend of a + (possibly template) class, you must explicitly state that the friend + function is a template, by appending angle brackets to its name, and + this template function must have been declared already. Here's an + example: +template <typename T> class foo { + friend void bar(foo<T>); +} + + The above declaration declares a non-template function named bar, so + it must be explicitly defined for each specialization of foo. A + template definition of bar won't do, because it is unrelated with the + non-template declaration above. So you'd have to end up writing: +void bar(foo<int>) { /* ... */ } +void bar(foo<void>) { /* ... */ } + + If you meant bar to be a template function, you should have + forward-declared it as follows. Note that, since the template function + declaration refers to the template class, the template class must be + forward-declared too: +template <typename T> +class foo; + +template <typename T> +void bar(foo<T>); + +template <typename T> +class foo { + friend void bar<>(foo<T>); +}; + +template <typename T> +void bar(foo<T>) { /* ... */ } + + In this case, the template argument list could be left empty, because + it can be implicitly deduced from the function arguments, but the + angle brackets must be present, otherwise the declaration will be + taken as a non-template function. Furthermore, in some cases, you may + have to explicitly specify the template arguments, to remove + ambiguity. + + An error in the last public comment draft of the ANSI/ISO C++ Standard + and the fact that previous releases of GCC would accept such friend + declarations as template declarations has led people to believe that + the forward declaration was not necessary, but, according to the final + version of the Standard, it is. + _________________________________________________________________ + +dynamic_cast, throw, typeid don't work with shared libraries + + The new C++ ABI in the GCC 3.0 series uses address comparisons, rather + than string compares, to determine type equality. This leads to better + performance. Like other objects that have to be present in the final + executable, these std::typeinfo_t objects have what is called vague + linkage because they are not tightly bound to any one particular + translation unit (object file). The compiler has to emit them in any + translation unit that requires their presence, and then rely on the + linking and loading process to make sure that only one of them is + active in the final executable. With static linking all of these + symbols are resolved at link time, but with dynamic linking, further + resolution occurs at load time. You have to ensure that objects within + a shared library are resolved against objects in the executable and + other shared libraries. + * For a program which is linked against a shared library, no + additional precautions need taking. + * You cannot create a shared library with the "-Bsymbolic" option, + as that prevents the resolution described above. + * If you use dlopen to explicitly load code from a shared library, + you must do several things. First, export global symbols from the + executable by linking it with the "-E" flag (you will have to + specify this as "-Wl,-E" if you are invoking the linker in the + usual manner from the compiler driver, g++). You must also make + the external symbols in the loaded library available for + subsequent libraries by providing the RTLD_GLOBAL flag to dlopen. + The symbol resolution can be immediate or lazy. + + Template instantiations are another, user visible, case of objects + with vague linkage, which needs similar resolution. If you do not take + the above precautions, you may discover that a template instantiation + with the same argument list, but instantiated in multiple translation + units, has several addresses, depending in which translation unit the + address is taken. (This is not an exhaustive list of the kind of + objects which have vague linkage and are expected to be resolved + during linking & loading.) + + If you are worried about different objects with the same name + colliding during the linking or loading process, then you should use + namespaces to disambiguate them. Giving distinct objects with global + linkage the same name is a violation of the One Definition Rule (ODR) + [basic.def.odr]. + + For more details about the way that GCC implements these and other C++ + features, please read the [40]ABI specification. Note the + std::typeinfo_t objects which must be resolved all begin with "_ZTS". + Refer to ld's documentation for a description of the "-E" & + "-Bsymbolic" flags. + _________________________________________________________________ + +Why do I need autoconf, bison, xgettext, automake, etc? + + If you're using diffs up dated from one snapshot to the next, or if + you're using the CVS repository, you may need several additional + programs to build GCC. + + These include, but are not necessarily limited to autoconf, automake, + bison, and xgettext. + + This is necessary because neither diff nor cvs keep timestamps + correct. This causes problems for generated files as "make" may think + those generated files are out of date and try to regenerate them. + + An easy way to work around this problem is to use the gcc_update + script in the contrib subdirectory of GCC, which handles this + transparently without requiring installation of any additional tools. + (Note: Up to and including GCC 2.95 this script was called egcs_update + .) + + When building from diffs or CVS or if you modified some sources, you + may also need to obtain development versions of some GNU tools, as the + production versions do not necessarily handle all features needed to + rebuild GCC. + + In general, the current versions of these tools from + [41]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ will work. At present, Autoconf 2.50 is not + supported, and you will need to use Autoconf 2.13; work is in progress + to fix this problem. Also look at + [42]ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/infrastructure/ for any special versions + of packages. + _________________________________________________________________ + +Why can't I build a shared library? + + When building a shared library you may get an error message from the + linker like `assert pure-text failed:' or `DP relative code in file'. + + This kind of error occurs when you've failed to provide proper flags + to gcc when linking the shared library. + + You can get this error even if all the .o files for the shared library + were compiled with the proper PIC option. When building a shared + library, gcc will compile additional code to be included in the + library. That additional code must also be compiled with the proper + PIC option. + + Adding the proper PIC option (-fpic or -fPIC) to the link line which + creates the shared library will fix this problem on targets that + support PIC in this manner. For example: + gcc -c -fPIC myfile.c + gcc -shared -o libmyfile.so -fPIC myfile.o + _________________________________________________________________ + +When building C++, the linker says my constructors, destructors or virtual +tables are undefined, but I defined them + + The ISO C++ Standard specifies that all virtual methods of a class + that are not pure-virtual must be defined, but does not require any + diagnostic for violations of this rule [class.virtual]/8. Based on + this assumption, GCC will only emit the implicitly defined + constructors, the assignment operator, the destructor and the virtual + table of a class in the translation unit that defines its first such + non-inline method. + + Therefore, if you fail to define this particular method, the linker + may complain about the lack of definitions for apparently unrelated + symbols. Unfortunately, in order to improve this error message, it + might be necessary to change the linker, and this can't always be + done. + + The solution is to ensure that all virtual methods that are not pure + are defined. Note that a destructor must be defined even if it is + declared pure-virtual [class.dtor]/7. + _________________________________________________________________ + +Will GCC someday include an incremental linker? + + Incremental linking is part of the linker, not the compiler. As such, + GCC doesn't have anything to do with incremental linking. Depending on + what platform you use, it may be possible to tell GCC to use the + platform's native linker (e.g., Solaris' ild(1)). + +References + + 1. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html + 2. http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html + 3. http://www.jamesd.demon.co.uk/csc/faq.html + 4. http://www.fortran.com/fortran/info.html + 5. http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/faq/index.html + 6. http://gcc.gnu.org/java/faq.html + 7. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#general + 8. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gcc + 9. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#open-development + 10. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#support + 11. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#platforms + 12. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#installation + 13. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#multiple + 14. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#rpath + 15. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#rpath + 16. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gas + 17. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#environ + 18. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#optimizing + 19. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#iconv + 20. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#testsuite + 21. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#testoptions + 22. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#multipletests + 23. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#old + 24. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#2.95sstream + 25. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#misc + 26. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#friend + 27. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#dso + 28. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#generated_files + 29. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#picflag-needed + 30. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#vtables + 31. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#incremental + 32. http://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html + 33. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#cathedral-vs-bazaar + 34. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html + 35. http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html + 36. http://gcc.gnu.org/buildstat.html + 37. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gas + 38. http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html + 39. http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2000-q2/msg00700/sstream + 40. http://www.codesourcery.com/cxx-abi/ + 41. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ + 42. ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/infrastructure/ |