GCC Switches From C to C++

According to a post on the GNU Compiler Collection list, GCC is now built as a C++ program by default. This is the fruition of much effort, and the goal now is to clean up the GCC internals that are reportedly pretty type-unsafe by rewriting them using C++ classes and templates.

Comments

Compiler bootstrapping?

[Ynot_82]

How will this affect bootstrapping the GCC on bare systems?

Been a while since I've delved into LFS or the like, but I'd think GCC being C++ based would seriously complicate things as it's now got more dependencies.

Re:too bad GCC is not relevant anymore thanks to L

[petermgreen]

AIUI GCC is now GPLv3, the libraries it ships with are GPLv3 with exceptions that allow using them to build non-GPL programs. However they were paranoid about the idea that people would try and save gcc's internal state to disk and then run it through a propietry backend. So they crafted a complex exception that tries to forbid that while allowing most other combinations of gcc with propietry tools.

Re:too bad GCC is not relevant anymore thanks to L

[DeathToBill]

Well, let's see. I personally work with control systems using x86, MIPS, PowerPC and ARM architectures, running Linux, VxWorks, QNX and WinCE (various combinations). They all have GCC toolchains, although we admittedly don't use it for CE.

If you're thinking microcontrollers, then GCC supports AVR, 68000-series, MicroBlaze, MSP430, ARM again...

Now, personally, my refrigerator has an analog thermostat, so, technically, you are right. If it had a thermostat implemented on a CPU, then I'd think there's a very good chance it was compiled with GCC.

What exactly "programmed in GCC" might mean is left for the reader to speculate on.