Using and Porting the GNU Compiler Collection
Richard M. Stallman
Last updated 28 July 1999
for gcc-2.95 Copyright (C) 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
For GCC Version 2.95
Published by the Free Software Foundation
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Last printed April, 1998.
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ISBN 1-882114-37-X
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.
The C, C++, and Objective C, and Fortran versions of the compiler are integrated; this is why we use the name "GNU Compiler Collection". GCC can compile programs written in C, C++, Objective C, or Fortran. The Fortran compiler is described in a separate manual.
"GCC" is a common shorthand term for the GNU Compiler Collection. This is both the most general name for the compiler, and the name used when the emphasis is on compiling C programs (as the abbreviation formerly stood for "GNU C Compiler").
When referring to C++ compilation, it is usual to call the compiler "G++". Since there is only one compiler, it is also accurate to call it "GCC" no matter what the language context; however, the term "G++" is more useful when the emphasis is on compiling C++ programs.
We use the name "GCC" to refer to the compilation system as a whole, and more specifically to the language-independent part of the compiler. For example, we refer to the optimization options as affecting the behavior of "GCC" or sometimes just "the compiler".
Front ends for other languages, such as Ada 9X, Fortran, Modula-3, and Pascal, are under development. These front-ends, like that for C++, are built in subdirectories of GCC and link to it. The result is an integrated compiler that can compile programs written in C, C++, Objective C, or any of the languages for which you have installed front ends.
In this manual, we only discuss the options for the C, Objective-C, and C++ compilers and those of the GCC core. Consult the documentation of the other front ends for the options to use when compiling programs written in other languages.
G++ is a compiler, not merely a preprocessor. G++ builds object code directly from your C++ program source. There is no intermediate C version of the program. (By contrast, for example, some other implementations use a program that generates a C program from your C++ source.) Avoiding an intermediate C representation of the program means that you get better object code, and better debugging information. The GNU debugger, GDB, works with this information in the object code to give you comprehensive C++ source-level editing capabilities (see section `C and C++' in Debugging with GDB).