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Re: gcc 3.3
>The hope is that yes, C++ compiled with gcc 3.3 will be binary compatible
>with 3.2. However, there's no guarantees; if gcc 3.2 turns out to have
>ABI bugs, like 3.1 did, then they will need to be fixed. The hope is
>that all the ABI bugs have now been caught, but no-one knows for sure.
PR 7442 submitted today reports more C++ ABI issues. This one covers problems
with the cxxabi.h file.
There are also known back end problems that haven't been fixed yet. We
use .init/.fini sections instead of .init_array/.fini_array sections for
static constructors/destructors. We use .gnu.linkonce sections instead
of ELF COMDAT for template instantiation. These should be fixable without
breaking backwards compatibility in theory, but we haven't tried yet.
I think we will continue to find C++ ABI bugs for a while. There hasn't been
any attempt to verify the implementation against the specification. I don't
think we should claim a stable C++ ABI until it is possible to link C++ code
compiled by gcc with C++ code compiled by other compilers, because only then
will we be able to test it.
Jim