Binary compatibility encompasses several related concepts:
Conformance to the same ABI and the same behavior of implementation-defined features are both relevant for compatibility.
The application binary interface implemented by a C or C++ compiler
affects code generation and runtime support for:
In addition, the application binary interface implemented by a C++ compiler affects code generation and runtime support for:
Some GCC compilation options cause the compiler to generate code that does not conform to the platform’s default ABI. Other options cause different program behavior for implementation-defined features that are not covered by an ABI. These options are provided for consistency with other compilers that do not follow the platform’s default ABI or the usual behavior of implementation-defined features for the platform. Be very careful about using such options.
Most platforms have a well-defined ABI that covers C code, but ABIs that cover C++ functionality are not yet common.
Starting with GCC 3.2, GCC binary conventions for C++ are based on a written, vendor-neutral C++ ABI that was designed to be specific to 64-bit Itanium but also includes generic specifications that apply to any platform. This C++ ABI is also implemented by other compiler vendors on some platforms, notably GNU/Linux and BSD systems. We have tried hard to provide a stable ABI that will be compatible with future GCC releases, but it is possible that we will encounter problems that make this difficult. Such problems could include different interpretations of the C++ ABI by different vendors, bugs in the ABI, or bugs in the implementation of the ABI in different compilers. GCC’s -Wabi switch warns when G++ generates code that is probably not compatible with the C++ ABI.
The C++ library used with a C++ compiler includes the Standard C++ Library, with functionality defined in the C++ Standard, plus language runtime support. The runtime support is included in a C++ ABI, but there is no formal ABI for the Standard C++ Library. Two implementations of that library are interoperable if one follows the de-facto ABI of the other and if they are both built with the same compiler, or with compilers that conform to the same ABI for C++ compiler and runtime support.
When G++ and another C++ compiler conform to the same C++ ABI, but the implementations of the Standard C++ Library that they normally use do not follow the same ABI for the Standard C++ Library, object files built with those compilers can be used in the same program only if they use the same C++ library. This requires specifying the location of the C++ library header files when invoking the compiler whose usual library is not being used. The location of GCC’s C++ header files depends on how the GCC build was configured, but can be seen by using the G++ -v option. With default configuration options for G++ 3.3 the compile line for a different C++ compiler needs to include
-I``gcc_install_directory``/include/c++/3.3
Similarly, compiling code with G++ that must use a C++ library other than the GNU C++ library requires specifying the location of the header files for that other library.
The most straightforward way to link a program to use a particular C++ library is to use a C++ driver that specifies that C++ library by default. The g++ driver, for example, tells the linker where to find GCC’s C++ library (libstdc++) plus the other libraries and startup files it needs, in the proper order.
If a program must use a different C++ library and it’s not possible to do the final link using a C++ driver that uses that library by default, it is necessary to tell g++ the location and name of that library. It might also be necessary to specify different startup files and other runtime support libraries, and to suppress the use of GCC’s support libraries with one or more of the options -nostdlib, -nostartfiles, and -nodefaultlibs.
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