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GNU Info File | 1995-06-16 | 41.6 KB | 953 lines

This is Info file gcc.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from the input file gcc.texi. 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 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," "Funding for Free Software," and "Protect Your Freedom--Fight `Look And Feel'" 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," "Funding for Free Software," and "Protect Your Freedom--Fight `Look And Feel'", 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: 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 GNU CC version 2. If you have trouble, get GDB version 4.4 or later. * DBX rejects some files produced by GNU CC, 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 GNU CC unless corrected by `fixincludes'. The corrected header files go in a new directory; GNU CC searches this directory before `/usr/include'. If you use `-I/usr/include', this tells GNU CC 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, GNU CC 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 GNU CC. You must specify all three options explicitly. * On a Sparc, GNU CC 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 GNU CC, 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 GNU CC 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 eumulator 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC correctly. We do not yet know why. However, GNU CC 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 GNU CC. Specifically, it fails to work on functions that use `alloca' or variable-size arrays. This is because GNU CC 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 involvving 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 GNU CC, but is now exceptionally rare. If you should run into it, you can work around by making your function smaller. * GNU CC 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. GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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. GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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/2.7.0 -lgcc -lc_s The first specifies where to find the library `libgcc.a' specified with the `-lgcc' option. GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC: 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 GNU CC: MALLOC=gmalloc.o File: gcc.info, Node: Incompatibilities, Next: Fixed Headers, Prev: External Bugs, Up: Trouble Incompatibilities of GNU CC =========================== 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. * GNU CC normally makes string constants read-only. If several identical-looking string constants are used, GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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. * GNU CC does not substitute macro arguments when they appear inside of string constants. For example, the following macro in GNU CC #define foo(a) "a" will produce output `"a"' regardless of what the argument A is. The `-traditional' option directs GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC. 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 `+='. GNU CC, following the ANSI standard, does not allow this. The difficulty described immediately above applies here too. * GNU CC 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, GNU CC 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. GNU CC 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, GNU CC output code normally uses a method different from that used on most versions of Unix. As a result, code compiled with GNU CC cannot call a structure-returning function compiled with PCC, and vice versa. The method used by GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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. GNU CC 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. GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 ================== GNU CC 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 GNU CC unless they are changed. Some have bugs, some are incompatible with ANSI C, and some depend on special features of other compilers. Installing GNU CC 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 GNU CC are not automatically updated. The easiest way to update them is to reinstall GNU CC. (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, GNU CC 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 GNU CC'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 ================== GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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. * GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 GNU CC 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 systems, 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 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. 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 ANSI C++ draft standard) is also evolving. 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 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. File: gcc.info, Node: Temporaries, Prev: Static Definitions, Up: C++ Misunderstandings Temporaries May Vanish Before You Expect ---------------------------------------- It is dangerous to use pointers or references to *portions* of a temporary object. The compiler may very well delete the object before you expect it to, leaving a pointer to garbage. The most common place where this problem crops up is in classes like the libg++ `String' class, that define a conversion function to type `char *' or `const char *'. However, any class that returns a pointer to some internal structure is potentially subject to this problem. For example, a program may use a function `strfunc' that returns `String' objects, and another function `charfunc' that operates on pointers to `char': String strfunc (); void charfunc (const char *); In this situation, it may seem natural to write `charfunc (strfunc ());' based on the knowledge that class `String' has an explicit conversion to `char' pointers. However, what really happens is akin to `charfunc (strfunc ().convert ());', where the `convert' method is a function to do the same data conversion normally performed by a cast. Since the last use of the temporary `String' object is the call to the conversion function, the compiler may delete that object before actually calling `charfunc'. The compiler has no way of knowing that deleting the `String' object will invalidate the pointer. The pointer then points to garbage, so that by the time `charfunc' is called, it gets an invalid argument. Code like this may run successfully under some other compilers, especially those that delete temporaries relatively late. However, the GNU C++ behavior is also standard-conformant, so if your program depends on late destruction of temporaries it is not portable. If you think this is surprising, you should be aware that the ANSI C++ committee continues to debate the lifetime-of-temporaries problem. For now, at least, the safe way to write such code is to give the temporary a name, which forces it to remain until the end of the scope of the name. For example: String& tmp = strfunc (); charfunc (tmp); File: gcc.info, Node: Protoize Caveats, Next: Non-bugs, Prev: C++ Misunderstandings, Up: Trouble Caveats of using `protoize' =========================== The conversion programs `protoize' and `unprotoize' can sometimes change a source file in a way that won't work unless you rearrange it. * `protoize' can insert references to a type name or type tag before the definition, or in a file where they are not defined. If this happens, compiler error messages should show you where the new references are, so fixing the file by hand is straightforward. * There are some C constructs which `protoize' cannot figure out. For example, it can't determine argument types for declaring a pointer-to-function variable; this you must do by hand. `protoize' inserts a comment containing `???' each time it finds such a variable; so you can find all such variables by searching for this string. ANSI C does not require declaring the argument types of pointer-to-function types. * Using `unprotoize' can easily introduce bugs. If the program relied on prototypes to bring about conversion of arguments, these conversions will not take place in the program without prototypes. One case in which you can be sure `unprotoize' is safe is when you are removing prototypes that were made with `protoize'; if the program worked before without any prototypes, it will work again without them. You can find all the places where this problem might occur by compiling the program with the `-Wconversion' option. It prints a warning whenever an argument is converted. * Both conversion programs can be confused if there are macro calls in and around the text to be converted. In other words, the standard syntax for a declaration or definition must not result from expanding a macro. This problem is inherent in the design of C and cannot be fixed. If only a few functions have confusing macro calls, you can easily convert them manually. * `protoize' cannot get the argument types for a function whose definition was not actually compiled due to preprocessing conditionals. When this happens, `protoize' changes nothing in regard to such a function. `protoize' tries to detect such instances and warn about them. You can generally work around this problem by using `protoize' step by step, each time specifying a different set of `-D' options for compilation, until all of the functions have been converted. There is no automatic way to verify that you have got them all, however. * Confusion may result if there is an occasion to convert a function declaration or definition in a region of source code where there is more than one formal parameter list present. Thus, attempts to convert code containing multiple (conditionally compiled) versions of a single function header (in the same vicinity) may not produce the desired (or expected) results. If you plan on converting source files which contain such code, it is recommended that you first make sure that each conditionally compiled region of source code which contains an alternative function header also contains at least one additional follower token (past the final right parenthesis of the function header). This should circumvent the problem. * `unprotoize' can become confused when trying to convert a function definition or declaration which contains a declaration for a pointer-to-function formal argument which has the same name as the function being defined or declared. We recommand you avoid such choices of formal parameter names. * You might also want to correct some of the indentation by hand and break long lines. (The conversion programs don't write lines longer than eighty characters in any case.)