path: root/gnu/egcs/FAQ

                       GCC Frequently Asked Questions

   The latest version of this document is always available at
   [1]http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/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.lang.c++ FAQ, [4]comp.std.c++ FAQ, and the
   [5]Fortran Information page.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                   Questions

    1. [6]General information
         1. [7]What is the relationship between GCC and EGCS
         2. [8]What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus
         3. [9]What is an open development model?
         4. [10]How to report bugs
         5. [11]How do I get a bug fixed or a feature added?
    2. [12]Installation
         1. [13]Problems building the Fortran compiler
         2. [14]How to install multiple versions of GCC
         3. [15]Dynamic linker is unable to find GCC libraries
         4. [16]libstdc++/libio tests fail badly with --enable-shared
         5. [17]GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld
         6. [18]cpp: Usage:... Error
    3. [19]Testsuite problems
         1. [20]Why is there no testsuite in GCC 2.95
         2. [21]Unable to run the testsuite
         3. [22]How do I pass flags like -fnew-abi to the testsuite?
         4. [23]How can I run the test suite with multiple options?
    4. [24]Platform-specific issues
         1. [25]Problems with exception handling on x86 platforms
         2. [26]Problems with Invalid `asm' statements
         3. [27]Building Linux kernels
         4. [28]How do I compile X11 headers with g++
         5. [29]How to build a cross compiler
    5. [30]Bugs and Non-Bugs
         1. [31]FD_ZERO macro
         2. [32]Octave 2.0.13 does not compile
         3. [33]Why can't I initialize a static variable with stdin?
         4. [34]Why can't I use #if here?
    6. [35]Miscellaneous
         1. [36]Virtual memory exhausted
         2. [37]Snapshots, how, when, why
         3. [38]Friend Templates
         4. [39]Where to find libg++
         5. [40]Why do I need autoconf, bison, xgettext, automake, etc 
         6. [41]Problems debugging GCC code
         7. [42]Conflicts when using cvs update 
         8. [43]Using GCC with GNAT/Ada
         9. [44]Using GCC with GNU Pascal
        10. [45]Using CVS to download snapshots 
        11. [46]Why can't I build a shared library?
        12. [47]Dealing with spam on the lists
        13. [48]How to work around too long C++ symbol names?
            (-fsquangle)
        14. [49]When building from CVS sources, I see 'gperf: invalid
            option -- F', even with the most current version of gperf.
        15. [50]When building C++, the linker says my constructors,
            destructors or virtual tables are undefined, but I defined
            them
        16. [51]What is libstdc++-v3 and how can I use it with g++?
     _________________________________________________________________

                              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 limitiations 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.

   We are in the process of merging GCC and EGCS, which will take some
   time. The net result will be a single project which will carry forward
   GCC development under the ultimate control of the [52]GCC Steering
   Committee.
     _________________________________________________________________

What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus

   It is a common mis-conception that Cygnus controls either directly or
   indirectly GCC.

   While Cygnus does donate hardware, network connections, code and
   developer time to GCC development, Cygnus does not control GCC.

   Overall control of GCC is in the hands of the [53]GCC Steering
   Committee which includes people from a variety of different
   organizations and backgrounds. The purpose of the steering committee
   is to make decisions in the best interest of GCC and to help ensure
   that no individual or company has control over the project.

   To summarize, Cygnus contributes to GCCproject, but does not exert a
   controlling influence over GCC.
     _________________________________________________________________

What is an open development model?

   With GCC, we are going to try a bazaar style[54][1] approach to its
   development: We make snapshots publicly available to anyone who wants
   to try them; we're going to 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 will be adding new features and optimizations at a rate
   that has not been done since the creation of gcc2; these additions
   will 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 ``[55]The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. The paper is a useful
     starting point for discussions.
     _________________________________________________________________

How to report bugs

   There are complete instructions in the [56]gcc info manual, section
   Bugs. The manual can also be read using `_M-x info_' in Emacs, or if
   the GNU info program is installed on your system by `info --node
   "(gcc)Bugs"'. Or see the file [57]BUGS included with the GCC source
   code.

   Before you report a bug for the _C++ compiler_, please check the
   [58]list of well-known bugs. If you want to report a bug with _egcs
   1.0.x_ or _egcs 1.1.x_, we strongly recommend upgrading to the current
   release first.

   In short, if GCC says Internal compiler error (or any other error that
   you'd like us to be able to reproduce, for that matter), please mail a
   bug report to [59]gcc-bugs@gcc.gnu.org or [60]bug-gcc@gnu.org
   including:
     * The GCC version
     * The system type
     * All options you passed to the compiler
     * Preprocessed output of the source file that caused the compiler
       error

   All this can normally be accomplished by mailing the command line, the
   output of the command, and the resulting `_your-file_.i' for C, or
   `_your-file_.ii' for C++, corresponding to:

   gcc -v --save-temps _all-your-options_ _your-file_.c

   Typically the CPP output (extension .i for C or .ii for C++) will be
   large, so please compress the resulting file with one of the popular
   compression programs such as bzip2, gzip, zip, pkzip or compress (in
   decreasing order of preference). Use maximum compression (-9) if
   available. Please include the compressed CPP output in your bug
   report.

   Since we're supposed to be able to re-create the assembly output
   (extension .s), you usually don't have to include it in the bug
   report, although you may want to post parts of it to point out
   assembly code you consider to be wrong.

   Whether to use MIME attachments or uuencode is up to you. In any case,
   make sure the compiler command line, version and error output are in
   plain text, so that we don't have to decode the bug report in order to
   tell who should take care of it. A meaningful subject indicating
   language and platform also helps.

   The gcc lists have message size limits (100 kbytes) and bug reports
   over those limits will currently be bounced. We're trying to find a
   way to allow larger bug reports to be posted, but this is currently
   impossible (unless you use MIME partials, which most people are unable
   to handle anyway, so you'd better avoid them for now). So, although we
   prefer to have complete bug reports archived, if you cannot reduce the
   bug report below the limit, please make it available for ftp or http
   and post the URL. Another alternative is to break the preprocessed
   output in multiple files (using split, for example) and post them in
   separate messages, but we prefer to have self-contained bug reports in
   single messages.

   If you fail to supply enough information for a bug report to be
   reproduced, someone will probably ask you to post additional
   information (or just ignore your bug report, if they're in a bad day,
   so try to get it right on the first posting :-). In this case, please
   post the additional information to the bug reporting mailing list, not
   just to the person who requested it, unless explicitly told so. If
   possible, please include in this follow-up all the information you had
   supplied in the incomplete bug report (including the preprocessor
   output), so that the new bug report is self-contained.
     _________________________________________________________________

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 increasing 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 it's benefits and
   disadvantages.
     * 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.
     * Report the problem to gcc-bugs 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 gcc-bugs that you would see from a
       commercial support organization since the people who read
       gcc-bugs, if they choose to help you, will be volunteering their
       time. This alternative will work best if you follow the directions
       on [61]submitting bugreports.
     * 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                 Installation

Problems building the Fortran compiler

   The Fortran front end can not be built with most vendor compilers; it
   must be built with gcc. As a result, you may get an error if you do
   not follow the install instructions carefully.

   In particular, instead of using "make" to build GCC, you should use
   "make bootstrap" if you are building a native compiler or "make cross"
   if you are building a cross compiler.

   It has also been reported that the Fortran compiler can not be built
   on Red Hat 4.X GNU/Linux for the Alpha. Fixing this may require
   upgrading binutils or to Red Hat 5.0; we'll provide more information
   as it becomes available.
     _________________________________________________________________

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, [62]GCC can not find GNU as/GNU ld explains
   how to deal with this.
     _________________________________________________________________

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 alterative 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 asembler 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 [63]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.
     _________________________________________________________________

                              Testsuite problems

Why is there no testsuite in GCC 2.95

   The GCC testsuite is not included in the GCC 2.95 release due to the
   uncertain copyright status of some tests.

   The GCC team will be reviewing the entire testsuite to find and remove
   any tests with uncertain copyright status. Once those tests are
   removed from the testsuite, the testsuite as a whole will be
   copyrighted under the terms of the GPL and included in future GCC
   releases.

   It is believed that only a few tests have uncertain copyright status
   and thus only a few tests will need to be removed from the testsuite.
     _________________________________________________________________

Unable to run the testsuite

   If you get a message about unable to find "standard.exp" when trying
   to run the GCC testsuites, then your dejagnu is too old to run the GCC
   tests. You will need to get a newer version of dejagnu; we've made a
   [64]dejagnu snapshot available until a new version of dejagnu can be
   released.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
     _________________________________________________________________

                           Platform-specific issues

   Please read the [65]host/target specific installation notes, too.

Problems with exception handling on x86 platforms

   If you are using the GNU assembler (aka gas) on an x86 platform and
   exception handling is not working correctly, then odds are you're
   using a buggy assembler. Releases of binutils prior to 2.9 are known
   to assemble exception handling code incorrectly.

   We recommend binutils-2.9.1 or newer. Some post-2.9.1 snapshots of
   binutils fix some subtle bugs, particularly on x86 and alpha. They are
   available at [66]ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/GCC/. The
   2.9.1.0.15 snapshot is known to work fine on those platforms; other
   than that, be aware that snapshots are in general untested and may not
   work (or even build). Use them at your own risk.
     _________________________________________________________________

Problems with invalid `asm' statements

   Previous releases of GCC (for example, GCC 2.7.2 or EGCS 1.1.2) did
   not detect as invalid a clobber specifier that clobbered an operand.
   Instead, it could spuriously and silently generate incorrect code for
   certain non-obvious cases of source code. Even more unfortunately, the
   manual (Using and Porting GCC, section Extended Asm, see the [67]bug
   report entry) did not explicitly say that it was invalid to specify
   clobber registers that were destined to overlap operands; it could
   arguably be interpreted that it was correct to clobber an input
   operand to mark it as not holding a usable value after the asm.

   For the general case, there is no way to tell whether a specified
   clobber is _intended_ to overlap with a specific (input) operand or is
   a program error, where the choice of actual register for operands
   failed to _avoid_ the clobbered register. Such unavoidable overlap is
   detected by versions GCC 2.95 and newer, and flagged as an error
   rather than accepted. An error message is given, such as:
  foo.c: In function `foo':
  foo.c:7: Invalid `asm' statement:
  foo.c:7: fixed or forbidden register 0 (ax) was spilled for class AREG.

   Unfortunately, a lot of existing software, for example the [68]Linux
   kernel version 2.0.35 for the Intel x86, has constructs where input
   operands are marked as clobbered.

   The manual now describes how to write constructs with operands that
   are modified by the construct, but not actually used. To write an asm
   which modifies an input operand but does not output anything usable,
   specify that operand as an _output operand_ outputting to an _unused
   dummy variable_.

   In the following example for the x86 architecture (taken from the
   Linux 2.0.35 kernel -- include/asm-i386/delay.h), the register-class
   constraint "a" denotes a register class containing the single register
   "ax" (aka. "eax"). It is therefore invalid to clobber "ax"; this
   operand has to be specified as an output as well as an input. The
   following code is therefore _invalid_:
extern __inline__ void
__delay (int loops)
{
  __asm__ __volatile__
    (".align 2,0x90\n1:\tdecl %0\n\tjns 1b"
     : /* no outputs */
     : "a" (loops)
     : "ax");
}

   It could be argued that since the register class for "a" contains only
   a single register, this could be detected as an "obvious" intended
   clobber of the input operand. While that is feasible, it opens up for
   further "obvious" cases, where the level of obviousness changes from
   person to person. As there is a correct way to write such asm
   constructs, this obviousness-detection is not needed other than for
   reasons of compatibility with an existing code-base, and that code
   base can be corrected.

   This corrected and clobber-less version, is _valid_ for GCC 2.95 as
   well as for previous versions of GCC and EGCS:
extern __inline__ void
__delay (int loops)
{
  int dummy;

  __asm__ __volatile__
    (".align 2,0x90\n1:\tdecl %0\n\tjns 1b"
     : "=a" (dummy)
     : "0" (loops));
}

   Note that the asm construct now has an output operand, but it is
   unused. Normally asm constructs with only unused output operands may
   be removed by gcc, unless marked volatile as above.
     _________________________________________________________________

Building Linux kernels

   The linux kernel violates certain aliasing rules specified in the
   ANSI/ISO standard. Starting with GCC 2.95, the gcc optimizer by
   default relies on these rules to produce more efficient code and thus
   will produce malfunctioning kernels. To work around this problem, the
   flag -fno-strict-aliasing must be added to the CFLAGS variable in the
   main kernel Makefile.

   If you try to build a 2.0.x kernel for Intel machines with any
   compiler other than GCC 2.7.2, then you are on your own. The 2.0.x
   kernels are to be built only with gcc 2.7.2. They use certain asm
   constructs which are incorrect, but (by accident) happen to work with
   gcc 2.7.2. If you insist on building 2.0.x kernels with egcs, you may
   be interested in this [69]patch which fixes some of the asm problems.
   You will also want to change asm constructs to [70]avoid clobbering
   their input operands.

   If you installed a recent binutils/gas snapshot on your GNU/Linux
   system, you may not be able to build the kernel because objdump does
   not understand the "-k" switch. The solution for this problem is to
   remove /usr/bin/encaps. (This is an obsolete program that was part of
   older binutils distributions; the Linux kernel's Makefile looks for
   this program to decide if you have an old or a new binutils. Problems
   occur if you installed a new binutils but haven't removed encaps,
   because the Makefile thinks you have the old one.)

   Finally, you may get errors with the X driver of the form
  _X11TransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111

   This is a kernel bug. The function sys_iopl in
   arch/i386/kernel/ioport.c does an illegal hack which used to work but
   is now broken since GCC optimizes more aggressively . The newer 2.1.x
   kernels already have a fix which should also work in 2.0.32.
     _________________________________________________________________

How do I compile X11 headers with g++

   When compiling X11 headers with a GCC 2.95 or newer, g++ will complain
   that types are missing. These headers assume that omitting the type
   means 'int'; this assumption is wrong for C++.

   g++ accepts such (illegal) constructs with the option -fpermissive; it
   will assume that missing type is 'int' (as defined by the C89
   standard).

   Since the upcoming C99 standard also obsoletes the implicit type
   assumptions, the X11 headers have to get fixed eventually.
     _________________________________________________________________

How to build a cross compiler

   Building cross compilers is a rather complex undertaking because they
   usually need additional software (cross assembler, cross linker,
   target libraries, target include files, etc).

   We recommend reading the [71]crossgcc FAQ for information about
   building cross compilers.

   If you have all the pieces available, then `make cross' should build a
   cross compiler. `make LANGUAGES="c c++" install' will install the
   cross compiler.

   Note that if you're trying to build a cross compiler in a tree which
   includes binutils-2.8 in addition to GCC, then you're going to need to
   make a couple minor tweaks so that the cross assembler, linker and nm
   utilities will be found.

   binutils-2.8 builds those files as gas.new, ld.new and nm.new; GCC
   looks for them using gas-new, ld-new and nm-new, so you may have to
   arrange for any symlinks which point to <file>.new to be changed to
   <file>-new.
     _________________________________________________________________

                               Bugs and Non-Bugs

   Unfortunately, improvements in tools that are widely used are sooner
   or later bound to break _something_. Sometimes, the code that breaks
   was wrong, and then that code should be fixed, even if it works for
   earlier versions of gcc or other compilers. The following problems
   with some releases of widely used packages have been identified:

   There is a separate [72]list of well-known bugs describing known
   deficiencies. Naturally we'd like that list to be of zero length.

   To report a bug, see [73]How to report bugs.
     _________________________________________________________________

FD_ZERO macro

   The FD_ZERO macro in (e.g.) libc-5.4.46 is incorrect. It uses
   [74]invalid asm clobbers. The following rewrite by Ulrich Drepper
   <drepper@cygnus.com> should fix this for glibc 2.0:
  # define __FD_ZERO(fdsetp) \
    do { \
      int __d0, __d1; \
    __asm__ __volatile__ ("cld; rep; stosl" \
                          : "=m" (((__fd_mask *) \
                                   (fdsetp))[__FDELT (__FD_SETSIZE)]), \
                            "=&c" (__d0), "=&D" (__d1) \
                          : "a" (0), "1" (sizeof (__fd_set) \
                                          / sizeof (__fd_mask)), \
                            "2" ((__fd_mask *) (fdsetp)) \
                          : "memory"); \
    } while (0)
     _________________________________________________________________

Octave 2.0.13 does not compile

   Apparently Octave 2.0.13 uses some C++ features which have been
   obsoleted and thus fails to build with EGCS 1.1 and later. This
   [75]patch to Octave should fix this.

   Octave 2.0.13.96, a test release, has been compiled without patches by
   egcs 1.1.2. It is available at
   [76]ftp://ftp.che.wisc.edu/pub/octave/test-releases/.
     _________________________________________________________________

Why can't I initialize a static variable with stdin?

   This has nothing to do with gcc, but people ask us about it a lot.
   Code like this:
  #include <stdio.h>

  FILE *yyin = stdin;

   will not compile with GNU libc (Linux libc6), because stdin is not a
   constant. This was done deliberately, in order for there to be no
   limit on the number of open FILE objects. It is surprising for people
   used to traditional Unix C libraries, but it is permitted by the C
   standard.

   This construct commonly occurs in code generated by old versions of
   lex or yacc. We suggest you try regenerating the parser with a current
   version of flex or bison, respectively. In your own code, the
   appropriate fix is to move the initialization to the beginning of
   main.

   There is a common misconception that the GCC developers are
   responsible for GNU libc. These are in fact two entirely separate
   projects. The appropriate place to ask questions relating to GNU libc
   is [77]libc-alpha@sourceware.cygnus.com.
     _________________________________________________________________

Why can't I use #if here?

   Let me guess... you wrote code that looks something like this:
  memcpy(dest, src,
#ifdef PLATFORM1
         12
#else
         24
#endif
        );

   and you got a whole pile of error messages:
test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg
test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg
test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg
test.c: In function `foo':
test.c:6: undefined or invalid # directive
test.c:8: undefined or invalid # directive
test.c:9: parse error before `24'
test.c:10: undefined or invalid # directive
test.c:11: parse error before `#'

   The problem, simply put, is that GCC's preprocessor does not allow you
   to put #ifdef (or any other directive) inside the arguments of a
   macro. Your C library's string.h happens to define memcpy as a macro -
   this is perfectly legitimate. The code therefore will not compile.

   We have two good reasons for not allowing directives inside macro
   arguments. First, it is not portable. It is "undefined behavior"
   according to the C standard; that means different compilers will do
   different things with it. Some will give you errors. Some will dump
   core. Some will silently mangle your code - you could get the
   equivalent of
        memcpy(dest, src, 1224);

   from the above example. A very few might do what you expected it to.
   We therefore feel it is most useful for GCC to reject this construct
   immediately so that it is found and fixed.

   Second, it is extraordinarily difficult to implement the preprocessor
   such that it does what you would expect for every possible directive
   found inside a macro argument. The best example is perhaps
#define foo(arg) ... arg ...
foo(blah
#undef foo
blah)

   which is impossible to implement in portable C without leaking memory.
   Allowing only a subset of directives would be confusing.

   It is always possible to rewrite code which uses conditionals inside
   macros so that it doesn't. You could write the above example
#ifdef PLATFORM1
   memcpy(dest, src, 12);
#else
   memcpy(dest, src, 24);
#endif

   This is a bit more typing, but I personally think it's better style in
   addition to being more portable.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                 Miscellaneous

Virtual memory exhausted error

   This error means your system ran out of memory; this can happen for
   large files, particularly when optimizing. If you're getting this
   error you should consider trying to simplify your files or reducing
   the optimization level.

   Note that using -pedantic or -Wreturn-type can cause an explosion in
   the amount of memory needed for template-heavy C++ code, such as code
   that uses STL. Also note that -Wall includes -Wreturn-type, so if you
   use -Wall you will need to specify -Wno-return-type to turn it off.
     _________________________________________________________________

Snapshots, how, when, why

   We make snapshots of the GCC sources about once a week; there is no
   predetermined schedule. These snapshots are intended to give everyone
   access to work in progress. Any given snapshot may generate incorrect
   code or even fail to build.

   If you plan on downloading and using snapshots, we highly recommend
   you subscribe to the GCC mailing lists. See [78]mailing lists on the
   main GCC page for instructions on how to subscribe.

   When using the diff files to update from older snapshots to newer
   snapshots, make sure to use "-E" and "-p" arguments to patch so that
   empty files are deleted and full pathnames are provided to patch. If
   your version of patch does not support "-E", you'll need to get a
   newer version. Also note that you may need autoconf, autoheader and
   various other programs if you use diff files to update from one
   snapshot to the next.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
     _________________________________________________________________

Where to find libg++

   Many folks have been asking where to find libg++ for GCC. First we
   should point out that few programs actually need libg++; most only
   need libstdc++/libio which are included in the GCC distribution.

   If you do need libg++ you can get a libg++ release that works with GCC
   from [79]ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure/. Note that the
   2.8.2 snapshot pre-dates the 2.8.1.2 release.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.

   Autoconf is available from [80]http://sourceware.cygnus.com/autoconf/;
   have a look at [81]ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure/ for
   the other packages.
     _________________________________________________________________

Conflicts when using cvs update

   It is not uncommon to get CVS conflict messages for some generated
   files when updating your local sources from the CVS repository.
   Typically such conflicts occur with bison or autoconf generated files.

   As long as you haven't been making modifications to the generated
   files or the generator files, it is safe to delete the offending file,
   then run cvs update again to get a new copy.
     _________________________________________________________________

Problems debugging GCC code

   On some systems GCC will produce dwarf debug records by default;
   however the gdb-4.16 release may not be able to read such debug
   records.

   You can either use the argument "-gstabs" instead of "-g" or pick up a
   copy of gdb-4.17 to work around the problem.
     _________________________________________________________________

Using GCC with GNAT/Ada

   The GNU Ada front-end is not currently supported by GCC; however, it
   is possible to build the GNAT compiler with a little work.

   First, retrieve the gnat-3.10p sources. The sources for the Ada front
   end and runtime all live in the "ada" subdirectory. Move that
   subdirectory to egcs/gcc/ada.

   Second, apply the patch found in egcs/gcc/README.gnat.

   Finally, rebuild per the GNAT build instructions.
     _________________________________________________________________

Using GCC with GNU Pascal

   The [82]GNU Pascal front-end does work with EGCS 1.1 It does not work
   with EGCS 1.0.x and the main branch of the CVS repository. A tarball
   can be found at
   [83]ftp://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/gnu-pascal/beta/.
     _________________________________________________________________

Using CVS to download snapshots

   It is possible to checkout specific snapshots with CVS or to check out
   the latest snapshot.

   We use CVS tags to identify each snapshot we make. Snapshot tags have
   the form "egcs_ss_YYYYMMDD". In addition, the latest official snapshot
   always has the tag "gcc_latest_snapshot".
     _________________________________________________________________

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
     _________________________________________________________________

How to work around too long C++ symbol names? (-fsquangle)

   If the standard assembler of your platform can't cope with the large
   symbol names that the default g++ name mangling mechanism produces,
   your best bet is to use GNU as, from the GNU binutils package.

   Unfortunately, GNU as does not support all platforms supported by
   egcs, so you may have to use an experimental work-around: the
   -fsquangle option, that enables compression of symbol names.

   Note that this option is still under development, and subject to
   change. Since it modifies the name mangling mechanism, you'll need to
   build libstdc++ and any other C++ libraries with this option enabled.
   Furthermore, if this option changes its behavior in the future, you'll
   have to rebuild them all again. :-(

   This option can be enabled by default by initializing
   `flag_do_squangling' with `1' in `gcc/cp/decl2.c' (it is not
   initialized by default), then rebuilding egcs and any C++ libraries.
     _________________________________________________________________

When building from CVS sources, I see 'gperf: invalid option -- F', even with
the most current version of gperf.

   The current version of gperf (v2.7) does not support the -F flag which
   is used when building egcs from CVS sources. You will need to obtain a
   patch for gperf and rebuild the program; this patch is available at
   [84]ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure/

   Patches for other tools, particularly autoconf, may also be necessary
   if you're building from CVS sources. Please see the [85]FAQ entry
   regarding these tools to determine if anything else is needed.

   These patched utilities should _only_ be required if you are building
   from CVS sources. For example, gperf is used to generate C code for a
   perfect hash function given an input file. Distributions of egcs
   already contain the generated C code, while the CVS sources will
   provide only the gperf input file. So gperf should only be necessary
   if you are building anything obtained from CVS.
     _________________________________________________________________

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, egcs 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

What is libstdc++-v3 and how can I use it with g++?

   From the [86]libstdc++-FAQ: "The EGCS Standard C++ Library v3, or
   libstdc++-2.90.x, is an ongoing project to implement the ISO 14882
   Standard C++ library as described in chapters 17 through 27 and annex
   D."

   At the moment the libstdc++-v3 is no "drop in replacement" for GCC's
   libstdc++. The best way to use it is as follows:
    1. Build and install GCC
    2. Build and install libstdc++-v3
    3. Use compiler flags to use the new libstdc++

   Please note that the libstdc++-v3 is not yet complete and should only
   be used by experienced programmers.

   For more information please refer to the [87]libstdc++-v3 homepage
     _________________________________________________________________

   [88]Return to the GCC home page

   _Last modified: October 19, 1999_

References

   1. http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/faq.html
   2. http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
   3. http://www.cerfnet.com/~mpcline/On-Line-C++-FAQs/
   4. http://reality.sgi.com/austern_mti/std-c++/faq.html
   5. http://www.fortran.com/fortran/info.html
   6. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#general
   7. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gcc
   8. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#cygnus
   9. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#open-development
  10. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#bugreport
  11. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#support
  12. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#installation
  13. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#fortran
  14. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#multiple
  15. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#rpath
  16. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#rpath
  17. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gas
  18. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#environ
  19. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#testsuite
  20. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#testsuite
  21. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#dejagnu
  22. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#testoptions
  23. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#multipletests
  24. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#platform
  25. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#x86eh
  26. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#asmclobber
  27. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#linuxkernel
  28. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#X11R6
  29. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#cross
  30. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#bugs
  31. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#fdzero
  32. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#octave
  33. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#stdin
  34. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#macarg
  35. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#misc
  36. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#memexhausted
  37. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#snapshot
  38. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#friend
  39. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#libg++
  40. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#generated_files
  41. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gdb
  42. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#conflicts
  43. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gnat
  44. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gpc
  45. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#cvssnapshots
  46. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#picflag-needed
  47. http://gcc.gnu.org/spam.html
  48. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#squangle
  49. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gperf
  50. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#vtables
  51. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#libstdc++
  52. http://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html
  53. http://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html
  54. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#cathedral-vs-bazaar
  55. http://locke.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html
  56. http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/
  57. http://egcs.cygnus.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/egcs/gcc/BUGS?content-type=text/plain&only_with_tag=HEAD
  58. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html
  59. mailto:gcc-bugs@gcc.gnu.org
  60. mailto:bug-gcc@gnu.org
  61. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#bugreport
  62. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#gas
  63. http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html
  64. ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure/dejagnu-19981026.tar.gz
  65. http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html
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  67. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#bugreport
  68. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#linuxkernel
  69. http://www.suse.de/~florian/kernel+egcs.html
  70. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#asmclobber
  71. http://www.objsw.com/CrossGCC/
  72. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html
  73. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#bugreport
  74. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#asmclobber
  75. http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave/mailing-lists/bug-octave/1998/270
  76. ftp://ftp.che.wisc.edu/pub/octave/test-releases/
  77. mailto:libc-alpha@sourceware.cygnus.com
  78. http://gcc.gnu.org/index.html#mailinglists
  79. ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure/
  80. http://sourceware.cygnus.com/autoconf/
  81. ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure/
  82. http://home.pages.de/~GNU-Pascal/
  83. ftp://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/gnu-pascal/beta/
  84. ftp://egcs.cygnus.com/pub/egcs/infrastructure
  85. http://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#generated_files
  86. http://sourceware.cygnus.com/libstdc++/faq/
  87. http://sourceware.cygnus.com/libstdc++/
  88. http://gcc.gnu.org/index.html