Re: gcc 4.1?

[Brian Dessent <brian at dessent dot net>]

John Helly wrote:

> I'm hunting all-over for gcc 4.1 in order to obtain gfortran (nee
> g77?) but find that all the links lead to dead ends.  Am I missing
> something or has 4.1 not been released.  I'm quite confused.
> 
> I d/l'd 4.0.2 and installed it expecting to have g77 but no such.
> 
> If 4.1 is not released yet, should I go back to 3.4.2 to get g77?
> I'm on an OS X 10.4.3 machine.

4.1 has not yet been released.  The current latest released version is
4.0.2.  You may see references to e.g. "feature x is in 4.1" which means
that it's been added to the 4.1 branch in subversion, but no release has
been made off this branch yet.  You can download snapshots of
development releases of 4.1 and 4.2, which are both under active
development.  They are however considered experimenal.  All files are
always available on the gcc.gnu.org ftp site (and its mirrors) so you
should look there first, e.g. <ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/snapshots/>

But you will not find g77 in any 4.x version of gcc.  It is dead as of
3.x.  gfortran is the replacement, and if you compile any 4.x that is
what you get.  What you might be thinking of is the fact that gfortran
when first introduced in 4.0 had some limitations, some of which have
been improved on in the development branches.  But it is still gfortran,
not g77.  I think that the goal is to soon have gfortran at a state
where it is as capable or better than g77.  I'm not sure when this will
happen (or if it's happened already) but I do know that you will have to
try the development branch (aka trunk aka HEAD aka 4.2) in order to
actually see the current state of this development.  I don't know much
about fortran specifically, so that's about all I know.

Brian