Re: Unclear documentation on building GCC together with binutils

[Tim Prince <timothyprince at sbcglobal dot net>]

Ulf Magnusson wrote:
> "If you also intend to build binutils (either to upgrade an existing
> installation or for use in place of the corresponding tools of your
> OS), unpack the binutils distribution either in the same directory or
> a separate one. In the latter case, add symbolic links to any
> components of the binutils you intend to build alongside the compiler
> (bfd, binutils, gas, gprof, ld, opcodes, ...) to the directory
> containing the GCC sources."
>
> What exactly is meant by "the same directory"? Say the GCC tarball is
> unpacked in the directory foo, yielding foo/gcc-3.x.x. Should binutils
> be unpacked in the same directory, so that you get
>
> foo/gcc-3.x.x
> foo/binutils-x.x

It has been a long time since I've done this. I believe this was how it 
was done.

> Why would you want to build gcc and binutils together in this way by
> the way? Isn't it possible to install them separately?

The most evident reason would be on a system where neither gcc nor 
binutils is available pre-built, but each depends on the other.  That 
used to be a usual case, e.g. on Sun or HP systems.  All systems I run 
on nowadays come with adequate versions of each, or pre-built versions 
are available for internet download, so it is possible to upgrade one at 
a time.