Re: compile libstdc++ 2.7.2?

[Joe Buck <jbuck at Synopsys dot COM>]

> > |> I remember reading somewhere that it's not possible to compile
> > |> the 2.7.2 libs with newer gcc/egcs.  Has there been a patch?
> > 
> > No.  What's wrong with using the supplied libstdc++ 2.8?
> 
> Netscape (and others) are explicitly linked against libstdc++ 2.7.
> libstdc++ 2.7 contains old parts of libio which conflict with glibc 2.1.

To fix that problem, "recompiling" (e.g. fixing just enough C++ syntax
bugs to get libstdc++ 2.7.x to build with egcs) would not suffice.  The
conflicts would still be present.

> We therefore need a way to recompile libstdc++ 2.7 so that old programs
> continue to work. 

Rather, you'd need to rip out all of the old libio stuff from 2.7,
replace it with new glibc 2.1-compatible stuff, and do this in a way
that programs that dynamically link with libstdc++ 2.7 will still work.
Not an easy task.

> The only other alternative, as far as I can tell, is to
> force everybody to recompile their program with libstdc++ 2.8 before we can
> upgrade glibc to 2.1. This is a Bad Thing.

Either that or they need some compatibility setup to run old binaries.

But then, the measures taken to make libstdc++ 2.7.x and Linux libc
happy with each other were hideous.