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This is Info file gcc.info, produced by Makeinfo version 1.68 from the input file ./gcc.texi. INFO-DIR-SECTION Programming START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * gcc: (gcc). The GNU Compiler Collection. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY This file documents the use and the internals of the GNU compiler. Published by the Free Software Foundation 59 Temple Place - Suite 330 Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Copyright (C) 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled "GNU General Public License" and "Funding for Free Software" are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the sections entitled "GNU General Public License" and "Funding for Free Software", and this permission notice, may be included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English. File: gcc.info, Node: Installation Problems, Next: Cross-Compiler Problems, Prev: Actual Bugs, Up: Trouble Installation Problems ===================== This is a list of problems (and some apparent problems which don't really mean anything is wrong) that show up during installation of GNU CC. * On certain systems, defining certain environment variables such as `CC' can interfere with the functioning of `make'. * If you encounter seemingly strange errors when trying to build the compiler in a directory other than the source directory, it could be because you have previously configured the compiler in the source directory. Make sure you have done all the necessary preparations. *Note Other Dir::. * If you build GCC on a BSD system using a directory stored in a System V file system, problems may occur in running `fixincludes' if the System V file system doesn't support symbolic links. These problems result in a failure to fix the declaration of `size_t' in `sys/types.h'. If you find that `size_t' is a signed type and that type mismatches occur, this could be the cause. The solution is not to use such a directory for building GCC. * In previous versions of GCC, the `gcc' driver program looked for `as' and `ld' in various places; for example, in files beginning with `/usr/local/lib/gcc-'. GCC version 2 looks for them in the directory `/usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/TARGET/VERSION'. Thus, to use a version of `as' or `ld' that is not the system default, for example `gas' or GNU `ld', you must put them in that directory (or make links to them from that directory). * Some commands executed when making the compiler may fail (return a non-zero status) and be ignored by `make'. These failures, which are often due to files that were not found, are expected, and can safely be ignored. * It is normal to have warnings in compiling certain files about unreachable code and about enumeration type clashes. These files' names begin with `insn-'. Also, `real.c' may get some warnings that you can ignore. * Sometimes `make' recompiles parts of the compiler when installing the compiler. In one case, this was traced down to a bug in `make'. Either ignore the problem or switch to GNU Make. * If you have installed a program known as purify, you may find that it causes errors while linking `enquire', which is part of building GCC. The fix is to get rid of the file `real-ld' which purify installs--so that GCC won't try to use it. * On GNU/Linux SLS 1.01, there is a problem with `libc.a': it does not contain the obstack functions. However, GCC assumes that the obstack functions are in `libc.a' when it is the GNU C library. To work around this problem, change the `__GNU_LIBRARY__' conditional around line 31 to `#if 1'. * On some 386 systems, building the compiler never finishes because `enquire' hangs due to a hardware problem in the motherboard--it reports floating point exceptions to the kernel incorrectly. You can install GCC except for `float.h' by patching out the command to run `enquire'. You may also be able to fix the problem for real by getting a replacement motherboard. This problem was observed in Revision E of the Micronics motherboard, and is fixed in Revision F. It has also been observed in the MYLEX MXA-33 motherboard. If you encounter this problem, you may also want to consider removing the FPU from the socket during the compilation. Alternatively, if you are running SCO Unix, you can reboot and force the FPU to be ignored. To do this, type `hd(40)unix auto ignorefpu'. * On some 386 systems, GCC crashes trying to compile `enquire.c'. This happens on machines that don't have a 387 FPU chip. On 386 machines, the system kernel is supposed to emulate the 387 when you don't have one. The crash is due to a bug in the emulator. One of these systems is the Unix from Interactive Systems: 386/ix. On this system, an alternate emulator is provided, and it does work. To use it, execute this command as super-user: ln /etc/emulator.rel1 /etc/emulator and then reboot the system. (The default emulator file remains present under the name `emulator.dflt'.) Try using `/etc/emulator.att', if you have such a problem on the SCO system. Another system which has this problem is Esix. We don't know whether it has an alternate emulator that works. On NetBSD 0.8, a similar problem manifests itself as these error messages: enquire.c: In function `fprop': enquire.c:2328: floating overflow * On SCO systems, when compiling GCC with the system's compiler, do not use `-O'. Some versions of the system's compiler miscompile GCC with `-O'. * Sometimes on a Sun 4 you may observe a crash in the program `genflags' or `genoutput' while building GCC. This is said to be due to a bug in `sh'. You can probably get around it by running `genflags' or `genoutput' manually and then retrying the `make'. * On Solaris 2, executables of GCC version 2.0.2 are commonly available, but they have a bug that shows up when compiling current versions of GCC: undefined symbol errors occur during assembly if you use `-g'. The solution is to compile the current version of GCC without `-g'. That makes a working compiler which you can use to recompile with `-g'. * Solaris 2 comes with a number of optional OS packages. Some of these packages are needed to use GCC fully. If you did not install all optional packages when installing Solaris, you will need to verify that the packages that GCC needs are installed. To check whether an optional package is installed, use the `pkginfo' command. To add an optional package, use the `pkgadd' command. For further details, see the Solaris documentation. For Solaris 2.0 and 2.1, GCC needs six packages: `SUNWarc', `SUNWbtool', `SUNWesu', `SUNWhea', `SUNWlibm', and `SUNWtoo'. For Solaris 2.2, GCC needs an additional seventh package: `SUNWsprot'. * On Solaris 2, trying to use the linker and other tools in `/usr/ucb' to install GCC has been observed to cause trouble. For example, the linker may hang indefinitely. The fix is to remove `/usr/ucb' from your `PATH'. * If you use the 1.31 version of the MIPS assembler (such as was shipped with Ultrix 3.1), you will need to use the -fno-delayed-branch switch when optimizing floating point code. Otherwise, the assembler will complain when the GCC compiler fills a branch delay slot with a floating point instruction, such as `add.d'. * If on a MIPS system you get an error message saying "does not have gp sections for all it's [sic] sectons [sic]", don't worry about it. This happens whenever you use GAS with the MIPS linker, but there is not really anything wrong, and it is okay to use the output file. You can stop such warnings by installing the GNU linker. It would be nice to extend GAS to produce the gp tables, but they are optional, and there should not be a warning about their absence. * In Ultrix 4.0 on the MIPS machine, `stdio.h' does not work with GNU CC at all unless it has been fixed with `fixincludes'. This causes problems in building GCC. Once GCC is installed, the problems go away. To work around this problem, when making the stage 1 compiler, specify this option to Make: GCC_FOR_TARGET="./xgcc -B./ -I./include" When making stage 2 and stage 3, specify this option: CFLAGS="-g -I./include" * Users have reported some problems with version 2.0 of the MIPS compiler tools that were shipped with Ultrix 4.1. Version 2.10 which came with Ultrix 4.2 seems to work fine. Users have also reported some problems with version 2.20 of the MIPS compiler tools that were shipped with RISC/os 4.x. The earlier version 2.11 seems to work fine. * Some versions of the MIPS linker will issue an assertion failure when linking code that uses `alloca' against shared libraries on RISC-OS 5.0, and DEC's OSF/1 systems. This is a bug in the linker, that is supposed to be fixed in future revisions. To protect against this, GCC passes `-non_shared' to the linker unless you pass an explicit `-shared' or `-call_shared' switch. * On System V release 3, you may get this error message while linking: ld fatal: failed to write symbol name SOMETHING in strings table for file WHATEVER This probably indicates that the disk is full or your ULIMIT won't allow the file to be as large as it needs to be. This problem can also result because the kernel parameter `MAXUMEM' is too small. If so, you must regenerate the kernel and make the value much larger. The default value is reported to be 1024; a value of 32768 is said to work. Smaller values may also work. * On System V, if you get an error like this, /usr/local/lib/bison.simple: In function `yyparse': /usr/local/lib/bison.simple:625: virtual memory exhausted that too indicates a problem with disk space, ULIMIT, or `MAXUMEM'. * Current GCC versions probably do not work on version 2 of the NeXT operating system. * On NeXTStep 3.0, the Objective C compiler does not work, due, apparently, to a kernel bug that it happens to trigger. This problem does not happen on 3.1. * On the Tower models 4N0 and 6N0, by default a process is not allowed to have more than one megabyte of memory. GCC cannot compile itself (or many other programs) with `-O' in that much memory. To solve this problem, reconfigure the kernel adding the following line to the configuration file: MAXUMEM = 4096 * On HP 9000 series 300 or 400 running HP-UX release 8.0, there is a bug in the assembler that must be fixed before GCC can be built. This bug manifests itself during the first stage of compilation, while building `libgcc2.a': _floatdisf cc1: warning: `-g' option not supported on this version of GCC cc1: warning: `-g1' option not supported on this version of GCC ./xgcc: Internal compiler error: program as got fatal signal 11 A patched version of the assembler is available by anonymous ftp from `altdorf.ai.mit.edu' as the file `archive/cph/hpux-8.0-assembler'. If you have HP software support, the patch can also be obtained directly from HP, as described in the following note: This is the patched assembler, to patch SR#1653-010439, where the assembler aborts on floating point constants. The bug is not really in the assembler, but in the shared library version of the function "cvtnum(3c)". The bug on "cvtnum(3c)" is SR#4701-078451. Anyway, the attached assembler uses the archive library version of "cvtnum(3c)" and thus does not exhibit the bug. This patch is also known as PHCO_4484. * On HP-UX version 8.05, but not on 8.07 or more recent versions, the `fixproto' shell script triggers a bug in the system shell. If you encounter this problem, upgrade your operating system or use BASH (the GNU shell) to run `fixproto'. * Some versions of the Pyramid C compiler are reported to be unable to compile GCC. You must use an older version of GCC for bootstrapping. One indication of this problem is if you get a crash when GCC compiles the function `muldi3' in file `libgcc2.c'. You may be able to succeed by getting GCC version 1, installing it, and using it to compile GCC version 2. The bug in the Pyramid C compiler does not seem to affect GCC version 1. * There may be similar problems on System V Release 3.1 on 386 systems. * On the Intel Paragon (an i860 machine), if you are using operating system version 1.0, you will get warnings or errors about redefinition of `va_arg' when you build GCC. If this happens, then you need to link most programs with the library `iclib.a'. You must also modify `stdio.h' as follows: before the lines #if defined(__i860__) && !defined(_VA_LIST) #include <va_list.h> insert the line #if __PGC__ and after the lines extern int vprintf(const char *, va_list ); extern int vsprintf(char *, const char *, va_list ); #endif insert the line #endif /* __PGC__ */ These problems don't exist in operating system version 1.1. * On the Altos 3068, programs compiled with GCC won't work unless you fix a kernel bug. This happens using system versions V.2.2 1.0gT1 and V.2.2 1.0e and perhaps later versions as well. See the file `README.ALTOS'. * You will get several sorts of compilation and linking errors on the we32k if you don't follow the special instructions. *Note Configurations::. * A bug in the HP-UX 8.05 (and earlier) shell will cause the fixproto program to report an error of the form: ./fixproto: sh internal 1K buffer overflow To fix this, change the first line of the fixproto script to look like: #!/bin/ksh File: gcc.info, Node: Cross-Compiler Problems, Next: Interoperation, Prev: Installation Problems, Up: Trouble Cross-Compiler Problems ======================= You may run into problems with cross compilation on certain machines, for several reasons. * Cross compilation can run into trouble for certain machines because some target machines' assemblers require floating point numbers to be written as *integer* constants in certain contexts. The compiler writes these integer constants by examining the floating point value as an integer and printing that integer, because this is simple to write and independent of the details of the floating point representation. But this does not work if the compiler is running on a different machine with an incompatible floating point format, or even a different byte-ordering. In addition, correct constant folding of floating point values requires representing them in the target machine's format. (The C standard does not quite require this, but in practice it is the only way to win.) It is now possible to overcome these problems by defining macros such as `REAL_VALUE_TYPE'. But doing so is a substantial amount of work for each target machine. *Note Cross-compilation::. * At present, the program `mips-tfile' which adds debug support to object files on MIPS systems does not work in a cross compile environment. File: gcc.info, Node: Interoperation, Next: External Bugs, Prev: Cross-Compiler Problems, Up: Trouble Interoperation ============== This section lists various difficulties encountered in using GNU C or GNU C++ together with other compilers or with the assemblers, linkers, libraries and debuggers on certain systems. * Objective C does not work on the RS/6000. * GNU C++ does not do name mangling in the same way as other C++ compilers. This means that object files compiled with one compiler cannot be used with another. This effect is intentional, to protect you from more subtle problems. Compilers differ as to many internal details of C++ implementation, including: how class instances are laid out, how multiple inheritance is implemented, and how virtual function calls are handled. If the name encoding were made the same, your programs would link against libraries provided from other compilers--but the programs would then crash when run. Incompatible libraries are then detected at link time, rather than at run time. * Older GDB versions sometimes fail to read the output of GCC version 2. If you have trouble, get GDB version 4.4 or later. * DBX rejects some files produced by GCC, though it accepts similar constructs in output from PCC. Until someone can supply a coherent description of what is valid DBX input and what is not, there is nothing I can do about these problems. You are on your own. * The GNU assembler (GAS) does not support PIC. To generate PIC code, you must use some other assembler, such as `/bin/as'. * On some BSD systems, including some versions of Ultrix, use of profiling causes static variable destructors (currently used only in C++) not to be run. * Use of `-I/usr/include' may cause trouble. Many systems come with header files that won't work with GCC unless corrected by `fixincludes'. The corrected header files go in a new directory; GCC searches this directory before `/usr/include'. If you use `-I/usr/include', this tells GCC to search `/usr/include' earlier on, before the corrected headers. The result is that you get the uncorrected header files. Instead, you should use these options (when compiling C programs): -I/usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/TARGET/VERSION/include -I/usr/include For C++ programs, GCC also uses a special directory that defines C++ interfaces to standard C subroutines. This directory is meant to be searched *before* other standard include directories, so that it takes precedence. If you are compiling C++ programs and specifying include directories explicitly, use this option first, then the two options above: -I/usr/local/lib/g++-include * On some SGI systems, when you use `-lgl_s' as an option, it gets translated magically to `-lgl_s -lX11_s -lc_s'. Naturally, this does not happen when you use GCC. You must specify all three options explicitly. * On a Sparc, GCC aligns all values of type `double' on an 8-byte boundary, and it expects every `double' to be so aligned. The Sun compiler usually gives `double' values 8-byte alignment, with one exception: function arguments of type `double' may not be aligned. As a result, if a function compiled with Sun CC takes the address of an argument of type `double' and passes this pointer of type `double *' to a function compiled with GCC, dereferencing the pointer may cause a fatal signal. One way to solve this problem is to compile your entire program with GNU CC. Another solution is to modify the function that is compiled with Sun CC to copy the argument into a local variable; local variables are always properly aligned. A third solution is to modify the function that uses the pointer to dereference it via the following function `access_double' instead of directly with `*': inline double access_double (double *unaligned_ptr) { union d2i { double d; int i[2]; }; union d2i *p = (union d2i *) unaligned_ptr; union d2i u; u.i[0] = p->i[0]; u.i[1] = p->i[1]; return u.d; } Storing into the pointer can be done likewise with the same union. * On Solaris, the `malloc' function in the `libmalloc.a' library may allocate memory that is only 4 byte aligned. Since GCC on the Sparc assumes that doubles are 8 byte aligned, this may result in a fatal signal if doubles are stored in memory allocated by the `libmalloc.a' library. The solution is to not use the `libmalloc.a' library. Use instead `malloc' and related functions from `libc.a'; they do not have this problem. * Sun forgot to include a static version of `libdl.a' with some versions of SunOS (mainly 4.1). This results in undefined symbols when linking static binaries (that is, if you use `-static'). If you see undefined symbols `_dlclose', `_dlsym' or `_dlopen' when linking, compile and link against the file `mit/util/misc/dlsym.c' from the MIT version of X windows. * The 128-bit long double format that the Sparc port supports currently works by using the architecturally defined quad-word floating point instructions. Since there is no hardware that supports these instructions they must be emulated by the operating system. Long doubles do not work in Sun OS versions 4.0.3 and earlier, because the kernel emulator uses an obsolete and incompatible format. Long doubles do not work in Sun OS version 4.1.1 due to a problem in a Sun library. Long doubles do work on Sun OS versions 4.1.2 and higher, but GCC does not enable them by default. Long doubles appear to work in Sun OS 5.x (Solaris 2.x). * On HP-UX version 9.01 on the HP PA, the HP compiler `cc' does not compile GCC correctly. We do not yet know why. However, GCC compiled on earlier HP-UX versions works properly on HP-UX 9.01 and can compile itself properly on 9.01. * On the HP PA machine, ADB sometimes fails to work on functions compiled with GCC. Specifically, it fails to work on functions that use `alloca' or variable-size arrays. This is because GCC doesn't generate HP-UX unwind descriptors for such functions. It may even be impossible to generate them. * Debugging (`-g') is not supported on the HP PA machine, unless you use the preliminary GNU tools (*note Installation::.). * Taking the address of a label may generate errors from the HP-UX PA assembler. GAS for the PA does not have this problem. * Using floating point parameters for indirect calls to static functions will not work when using the HP assembler. There simply is no way for GCC to specify what registers hold arguments for static functions when using the HP assembler. GAS for the PA does not have this problem. * In extremely rare cases involving some very large functions you may receive errors from the HP linker complaining about an out of bounds unconditional branch offset. This used to occur more often in previous versions of GCC, but is now exceptionally rare. If you should run into it, you can work around by making your function smaller. * GCC compiled code sometimes emits warnings from the HP-UX assembler of the form: (warning) Use of GR3 when frame >= 8192 may cause conflict. These warnings are harmless and can be safely ignored. * The current version of the assembler (`/bin/as') for the RS/6000 has certain problems that prevent the `-g' option in GCC from working. Note that `Makefile.in' uses `-g' by default when compiling `libgcc2.c'. IBM has produced a fixed version of the assembler. The upgraded assembler unfortunately was not included in any of the AIX 3.2 update PTF releases (3.2.2, 3.2.3, or 3.2.3e). Users of AIX 3.1 should request PTF U403044 from IBM and users of AIX 3.2 should request PTF U416277. See the file `README.RS6000' for more details on these updates. You can test for the presense of a fixed assembler by using the command as -u < /dev/null If the command exits normally, the assembler fix already is installed. If the assembler complains that "-u" is an unknown flag, you need to order the fix. * On the IBM RS/6000, compiling code of the form extern int foo; ... foo ... static int foo; will cause the linker to report an undefined symbol `foo'. Although this behavior differs from most other systems, it is not a bug because redefining an `extern' variable as `static' is undefined in ANSI C. * AIX on the RS/6000 provides support (NLS) for environments outside of the United States. Compilers and assemblers use NLS to support locale-specific representations of various objects including floating-point numbers ("." vs "," for separating decimal fractions). There have been problems reported where the library linked with GCC does not produce the same floating-point formats that the assembler accepts. If you have this problem, set the LANG environment variable to "C" or "En_US". * Even if you specify `-fdollars-in-identifiers', you cannot successfully use `$' in identifiers on the RS/6000 due to a restriction in the IBM assembler. GAS supports these identifiers. * On the RS/6000, XLC version 1.3.0.0 will miscompile `jump.c'. XLC version 1.3.0.1 or later fixes this problem. You can obtain XLC-1.3.0.2 by requesting PTF 421749 from IBM. * There is an assembler bug in versions of DG/UX prior to 5.4.2.01 that occurs when the `fldcr' instruction is used. GCC uses `fldcr' on the 88100 to serialize volatile memory references. Use the option `-mno-serialize-volatile' if your version of the assembler has this bug. * On VMS, GAS versions 1.38.1 and earlier may cause spurious warning messages from the linker. These warning messages complain of mismatched psect attributes. You can ignore them. *Note VMS Install::. * On NewsOS version 3, if you include both of the files `stddef.h' and `sys/types.h', you get an error because there are two typedefs of `size_t'. You should change `sys/types.h' by adding these lines around the definition of `size_t': #ifndef _SIZE_T #define _SIZE_T ACTUAL TYPEDEF HERE #endif * On the Alliant, the system's own convention for returning structures and unions is unusual, and is not compatible with GCC no matter what options are used. * On the IBM RT PC, the MetaWare HighC compiler (hc) uses a different convention for structure and union returning. Use the option `-mhc-struct-return' to tell GCC to use a convention compatible with it. * On Ultrix, the Fortran compiler expects registers 2 through 5 to be saved by function calls. However, the C compiler uses conventions compatible with BSD Unix: registers 2 through 5 may be clobbered by function calls. GCC uses the same convention as the Ultrix C compiler. You can use these options to produce code compatible with the Fortran compiler: -fcall-saved-r2 -fcall-saved-r3 -fcall-saved-r4 -fcall-saved-r5 * On the WE32k, you may find that programs compiled with GCC do not work with the standard shared C library. You may need to link with the ordinary C compiler. If you do so, you must specify the following options: -L/usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/we32k-att-sysv/2.8.1 -lgcc -lc_s The first specifies where to find the library `libgcc.a' specified with the `-lgcc' option. GCC does linking by invoking `ld', just as `cc' does, and there is no reason why it *should* matter which compilation program you use to invoke `ld'. If someone tracks this problem down, it can probably be fixed easily. * On the Alpha, you may get assembler errors about invalid syntax as a result of floating point constants. This is due to a bug in the C library functions `ecvt', `fcvt' and `gcvt'. Given valid floating point numbers, they sometimes print `NaN'. * On Irix 4.0.5F (and perhaps in some other versions), an assembler bug sometimes reorders instructions incorrectly when optimization is turned on. If you think this may be happening to you, try using the GNU assembler; GAS version 2.1 supports ECOFF on Irix. Or use the `-noasmopt' option when you compile GCC with itself, and then again when you compile your program. (This is a temporary kludge to turn off assembler optimization on Irix.) If this proves to be what you need, edit the assembler spec in the file `specs' so that it unconditionally passes `-O0' to the assembler, and never passes `-O2' or `-O3'. File: gcc.info, Node: External Bugs, Next: Incompatibilities, Prev: Interoperation, Up: Trouble Problems Compiling Certain Programs =================================== Certain programs have problems compiling. * Parse errors may occur compiling X11 on a Decstation running Ultrix 4.2 because of problems in DEC's versions of the X11 header files `X11/Xlib.h' and `X11/Xutil.h'. People recommend adding `-I/usr/include/mit' to use the MIT versions of the header files, using the `-traditional' switch to turn off ANSI C, or fixing the header files by adding this: #ifdef __STDC__ #define NeedFunctionPrototypes 0 #endif * If you have trouble compiling Perl on a SunOS 4 system, it may be because Perl specifies `-I/usr/ucbinclude'. This accesses the unfixed header files. Perl specifies the options -traditional -Dvolatile=__volatile__ -I/usr/include/sun -I/usr/ucbinclude -fpcc-struct-return most of which are unnecessary with GCC 2.4.5 and newer versions. You can make a properly working Perl by setting `ccflags' to `-fwritable-strings' (implied by the `-traditional' in the original options) and `cppflags' to empty in `config.sh', then typing `./doSH; make depend; make'. * On various 386 Unix systems derived from System V, including SCO, ISC, and ESIX, you may get error messages about running out of virtual memory while compiling certain programs. You can prevent this problem by linking GCC with the GNU malloc (which thus replaces the malloc that comes with the system). GNU malloc is available as a separate package, and also in the file `src/gmalloc.c' in the GNU Emacs 19 distribution. If you have installed GNU malloc as a separate library package, use this option when you relink GCC: MALLOC=/usr/local/lib/libgmalloc.a Alternatively, if you have compiled `gmalloc.c' from Emacs 19, copy the object file to `gmalloc.o' and use this option when you relink GCC: MALLOC=gmalloc.o File: gcc.info, Node: Incompatibilities, Next: Fixed Headers, Prev: External Bugs, Up: Trouble Incompatibilities of GCC ======================== There are several noteworthy incompatibilities between GNU C and most existing (non-ANSI) versions of C. The `-traditional' option eliminates many of these incompatibilities, *but not all*, by telling GNU C to behave like the other C compilers. * GCC normally makes string constants read-only. If several identical-looking string constants are used, GCC stores only one copy of the string. One consequence is that you cannot call `mktemp' with a string constant argument. The function `mktemp' always alters the string its argument points to. Another consequence is that `sscanf' does not work on some systems when passed a string constant as its format control string or input. This is because `sscanf' incorrectly tries to write into the string constant. Likewise `fscanf' and `scanf'. The best solution to these problems is to change the program to use `char'-array variables with initialization strings for these purposes instead of string constants. But if this is not possible, you can use the `-fwritable-strings' flag, which directs GCC to handle string constants the same way most C compilers do. `-traditional' also has this effect, among others. * `-2147483648' is positive. This is because 2147483648 cannot fit in the type `int', so (following the ANSI C rules) its data type is `unsigned long int'. Negating this value yields 2147483648 again. * GCC does not substitute macro arguments when they appear inside of string constants. For example, the following macro in GCC #define foo(a) "a" will produce output `"a"' regardless of what the argument A is. The `-traditional' option directs GCC to handle such cases (among others) in the old-fashioned (non-ANSI) fashion. * When you use `setjmp' and `longjmp', the only automatic variables guaranteed to remain valid are those declared `volatile'. This is a consequence of automatic register allocation. Consider this function: jmp_buf j; foo () { int a, b; a = fun1 (); if (setjmp (j)) return a; a = fun2 (); /* `longjmp (j)' may occur in `fun3'. */ return a + fun3 (); } Here `a' may or may not be restored to its first value when the `longjmp' occurs. If `a' is allocated in a register, then its first value is restored; otherwise, it keeps the last value stored in it. If you use the `-W' option with the `-O' option, you will get a warning when GCC thinks such a problem might be possible. The `-traditional' option directs GNU C to put variables in the stack by default, rather than in registers, in functions that call `setjmp'. This results in the behavior found in traditional C compilers. * Programs that use preprocessing directives in the middle of macro arguments do not work with GCC. For example, a program like this will not work: foobar ( #define luser hack) ANSI C does not permit such a construct. It would make sense to support it when `-traditional' is used, but it is too much work to implement. * Declarations of external variables and functions within a block apply only to the block containing the declaration. In other words, they have the same scope as any other declaration in the same place. In some other C compilers, a `extern' declaration affects all the rest of the file even if it happens within a block. The `-traditional' option directs GNU C to treat all `extern' declarations as global, like traditional compilers. * In traditional C, you can combine `long', etc., with a typedef name, as shown here: typedef int foo; typedef long foo bar; In ANSI C, this is not allowed: `long' and other type modifiers require an explicit `int'. Because this criterion is expressed by Bison grammar rules rather than C code, the `-traditional' flag cannot alter it. * PCC allows typedef names to be used as function parameters. The difficulty described immediately above applies here too. * PCC allows whitespace in the middle of compound assignment operators such as `+='. GCC, following the ANSI standard, does not allow this. The difficulty described immediately above applies here too. * GCC complains about unterminated character constants inside of preprocessing conditionals that fail. Some programs have English comments enclosed in conditionals that are guaranteed to fail; if these comments contain apostrophes, GCC will probably report an error. For example, this code would produce an error: #if 0 You can't expect this to work. #endif The best solution to such a problem is to put the text into an actual C comment delimited by `/*...*/'. However, `-traditional' suppresses these error messages. * Many user programs contain the declaration `long time ();'. In the past, the system header files on many systems did not actually declare `time', so it did not matter what type your program declared it to return. But in systems with ANSI C headers, `time' is declared to return `time_t', and if that is not the same as `long', then `long time ();' is erroneous. The solution is to change your program to use `time_t' as the return type of `time'. * When compiling functions that return `float', PCC converts it to a double. GCC actually returns a `float'. If you are concerned with PCC compatibility, you should declare your functions to return `double'; you might as well say what you mean. * When compiling functions that return structures or unions, GCC output code normally uses a method different from that used on most versions of Unix. As a result, code compiled with GCC cannot call a structure-returning function compiled with PCC, and vice versa. The method used by GCC is as follows: a structure or union which is 1, 2, 4 or 8 bytes long is returned like a scalar. A structure or union with any other size is stored into an address supplied by the caller (usually in a special, fixed register, but on some machines it is passed on the stack). The machine-description macros `STRUCT_VALUE' and `STRUCT_INCOMING_VALUE' tell GCC where to pass this address. By contrast, PCC on most target machines returns structures and unions of any size by copying the data into an area of static storage, and then returning the address of that storage as if it were a pointer value. The caller must copy the data from that memory area to the place where the value is wanted. GCC does not use this method because it is slower and nonreentrant. On some newer machines, PCC uses a reentrant convention for all structure and union returning. GCC on most of these machines uses a compatible convention when returning structures and unions in memory, but still returns small structures and unions in registers. You can tell GCC to use a compatible convention for all structure and union returning with the option `-fpcc-struct-return'. * GNU C complains about program fragments such as `0x74ae-0x4000' which appear to be two hexadecimal constants separated by the minus operator. Actually, this string is a single "preprocessing token". Each such token must correspond to one token in C. Since this does not, GNU C prints an error message. Although it may appear obvious that what is meant is an operator and two values, the ANSI C standard specifically requires that this be treated as erroneous. A "preprocessing token" is a "preprocessing number" if it begins with a digit and is followed by letters, underscores, digits, periods and `e+', `e-', `E+', or `E-' character sequences. To make the above program fragment valid, place whitespace in front of the minus sign. This whitespace will end the preprocessing number. File: gcc.info, Node: Fixed Headers, Next: Standard Libraries, Prev: Incompatibilities, Up: Trouble Fixed Header Files ================== GCC needs to install corrected versions of some system header files. This is because most target systems have some header files that won't work with GCC unless they are changed. Some have bugs, some are incompatible with ANSI C, and some depend on special features of other compilers. Installing GCC automatically creates and installs the fixed header files, by running a program called `fixincludes' (or for certain targets an alternative such as `fixinc.svr4'). Normally, you don't need to pay attention to this. But there are cases where it doesn't do the right thing automatically. * If you update the system's header files, such as by installing a new system version, the fixed header files of GCC are not automatically updated. The easiest way to update them is to reinstall GCC. (If you want to be clever, look in the makefile and you can find a shortcut.) * On some systems, in particular SunOS 4, header file directories contain machine-specific symbolic links in certain places. This makes it possible to share most of the header files among hosts running the same version of SunOS 4 on different machine models. The programs that fix the header files do not understand this special way of using symbolic links; therefore, the directory of fixed header files is good only for the machine model used to build it. In SunOS 4, only programs that look inside the kernel will notice the difference between machine models. Therefore, for most purposes, you need not be concerned about this. It is possible to make separate sets of fixed header files for the different machine models, and arrange a structure of symbolic links so as to use the proper set, but you'll have to do this by hand. * On Lynxos, GCC by default does not fix the header files. This is because bugs in the shell cause the `fixincludes' script to fail. This means you will encounter problems due to bugs in the system header files. It may be no comfort that they aren't GCC's fault, but it does mean that there's nothing for us to do about them. File: gcc.info, Node: Standard Libraries, Next: Disappointments, Prev: Fixed Headers, Up: Trouble Standard Libraries ================== GCC by itself attempts to be what the ISO/ANSI C standard calls a "conforming freestanding implementation". This means all ANSI C language features are available, as well as the contents of `float.h', `limits.h', `stdarg.h', and `stddef.h'. The rest of the C library is supplied by the vendor of the operating system. If that C library doesn't conform to the C standards, then your programs might get warnings (especially when using `-Wall') that you don't expect. For example, the `sprintf' function on SunOS 4.1.3 returns `char *' while the C standard says that `sprintf' returns an `int'. The `fixincludes' program could make the prototype for this function match the Standard, but that would be wrong, since the function will still return `char *'. If you need a Standard compliant library, then you need to find one, as GCC does not provide one. The GNU C library (called `glibc') has been ported to a number of operating systems, and provides ANSI/ISO, POSIX, BSD and SystemV compatibility. You could also ask your operating system vendor if newer libraries are available. File: gcc.info, Node: Disappointments, Next: C++ Misunderstandings, Prev: Standard Libraries, Up: Trouble Disappointments and Misunderstandings ===================================== These problems are perhaps regrettable, but we don't know any practical way around them. * Certain local variables aren't recognized by debuggers when you compile with optimization. This occurs because sometimes GCC optimizes the variable out of existence. There is no way to tell the debugger how to compute the value such a variable "would have had", and it is not clear that would be desirable anyway. So GCC simply does not mention the eliminated variable when it writes debugging information. You have to expect a certain amount of disagreement between the executable and your source code, when you use optimization. * Users often think it is a bug when GCC reports an error for code like this: int foo (struct mumble *); struct mumble { ... }; int foo (struct mumble *x) { ... } This code really is erroneous, because the scope of `struct mumble' in the prototype is limited to the argument list containing it. It does not refer to the `struct mumble' defined with file scope immediately below--they are two unrelated types with similar names in different scopes. But in the definition of `foo', the file-scope type is used because that is available to be inherited. Thus, the definition and the prototype do not match, and you get an error. This behavior may seem silly, but it's what the ANSI standard specifies. It is easy enough for you to make your code work by moving the definition of `struct mumble' above the prototype. It's not worth being incompatible with ANSI C just to avoid an error for the example shown above. * Accesses to bitfields even in volatile objects works by accessing larger objects, such as a byte or a word. You cannot rely on what size of object is accessed in order to read or write the bitfield; it may even vary for a given bitfield according to the precise usage. If you care about controlling the amount of memory that is accessed, use volatile but do not use bitfields. * GCC comes with shell scripts to fix certain known problems in system header files. They install corrected copies of various header files in a special directory where only GCC will normally look for them. The scripts adapt to various systems by searching all the system header files for the problem cases that we know about. If new system header files are installed, nothing automatically arranges to update the corrected header files. You will have to reinstall GCC to fix the new header files. More specifically, go to the build directory and delete the files `stmp-fixinc' and `stmp-headers', and the subdirectory `include'; then do `make install' again. * On 68000 and x86 systems, for instance, you can get paradoxical results if you test the precise values of floating point numbers. For example, you can find that a floating point value which is not a NaN is not equal to itself. This results from the fact that the floating point registers hold a few more bits of precision than fit in a `double' in memory. Compiled code moves values between memory and floating point registers at its convenience, and moving them into memory truncates them. You can partially avoid this problem by using the `-ffloat-store' option (*note Optimize Options::.). * On the MIPS, variable argument functions using `varargs.h' cannot have a floating point value for the first argument. The reason for this is that in the absence of a prototype in scope, if the first argument is a floating point, it is passed in a floating point register, rather than an integer register. If the code is rewritten to use the ANSI standard `stdarg.h' method of variable arguments, and the prototype is in scope at the time of the call, everything will work fine. * On the H8/300 and H8/300H, variable argument functions must be implemented using the ANSI standard `stdarg.h' method of variable arguments. Furthermore, calls to functions using `stdarg.h' variable arguments must have a prototype for the called function in scope at the time of the call. File: gcc.info, Node: C++ Misunderstandings, Next: Protoize Caveats, Prev: Disappointments, Up: Trouble Common Misunderstandings with GNU C++ ===================================== C++ is a complex language and an evolving one, and its standard definition (the ISO C++ standard) was only recently completed. As a result, your C++ compiler may occasionally surprise you, even when its behavior is correct. This section discusses some areas that frequently give rise to questions of this sort. * Menu: * Static Definitions:: Static member declarations are not definitions * Temporaries:: Temporaries may vanish before you expect * Copy Assignment:: Copy Assignment operators copy virtual bases twice File: gcc.info, Node: Static Definitions, Next: Temporaries, Up: C++ Misunderstandings Declare *and* Define Static Members ----------------------------------- When a class has static data members, it is not enough to *declare* the static member; you must also *define* it. For example: class Foo { ... void method(); static int bar; }; This declaration only establishes that the class `Foo' has an `int' named `Foo::bar', and a member function named `Foo::method'. But you still need to define *both* `method' and `bar' elsewhere. According to the draft ANSI standard, you must supply an initializer in one (and only one) source file, such as: int Foo::bar = 0; Other C++ compilers may not correctly implement the standard behavior. As a result, when you switch to `g++' from one of these compilers, you may discover that a program that appeared to work correctly in fact does not conform to the standard: `g++' reports as undefined symbols any static data members that lack definitions.