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Re: [RFC] Switching implementation language to C++
- From: "Joseph S. Myers" <joseph at codesourcery dot com>
- To: Basile Starynkevitch <basile at starynkevitch dot net>
- Cc: Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>, Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at integrable-solutions dot net>, Diego Novillo <dnovillo at google dot com>, gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
- Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 16:15:15 +0000 (UTC)
- Subject: Re: [RFC] Switching implementation language to C++
- References: <4C03E22D.80800@google.com> <AANLkTin1WtdxP1g1dVeXc6bx5Z3-AIknQgQNhSERqhJD@mail.gmail.com> <4C03E9B0.1030300@google.com> <4C03FF30.5080701@codesourcery.com> <AANLkTimdRryiInOO8UTtwxMTj4wzGYL0ir1-y3dXOhIL@mail.gmail.com> <4C04050D.5060708@codesourcery.com> <AANLkTiklFD9nDFMi6-ubAasAZbW6-2qxL2OzrxRwMFfN@mail.gmail.com> <4C040F1D.2070402@codesourcery.com> <1275334864.22465.51.camel@glinka>
On Mon, 31 May 2010, Basile Starynkevitch wrote:
> I would even imagine that later, one could configure GCC to have only a
> C++ front-end, but no more a C one. That probably would be unusual,
> since many important applications which want to be compiled by GCC (I am
> thinking of the Linux kernel) will continue to exist in C. But I would
> believe that a future GCC with only a C++ frontend and without a C
> frontend would be possible, and be able to bootstrap (i.e. make stage3),
> which is not true today. IIRC, today's GCC (i.e. 4.5) cannot even be
> configured to have a C++ front-end without having a C front-end. Do we
> want to change that?
I believe it would be a bad idea to change GCC's language-independent
runtime libraries (libgcc etc.) and libraries for ObjC, Fortran etc. to
use C++. As such, building the C compiler will continue to be required in
order to build those libraries. (It should also continue to be possible
to build a cross compiler that only supports C - using, of course,
pre-installed build-x-build and build-x-host C++ compilers - rather than
requiring C++ support to be built for the target; the requirement to build
a C++ host-x-target compiler will only apply for native bootstrap.)
--
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com