src/stlinst.cc and relationship to the SGI STL

["Smithers, Kit" <kit.smithers@eds.com>]

I wonder if any of you can help me. I'm trying to understand the
relationship between the file src/stlinst.cc and the SGI standard template
library. As I understand it the SGI STL is intended to only be a set of
header files... but this file seems to be a dependency on the implementation
of the SGI STL and if you dont include it as part of the standard library
then programs using the STL wont link.

In my particular case if you compare the older version of the STL that comes
with egcs1.1.1 then you find that they've declared (or renamed) a different
set of static data members in __default_alloc_template. Code built against
the newer STL doesnt link with older libstdc++.

I cant find a reference to "default_alloc" anywhere in the standard (I only
have the draft 2 version) nor was I expecting to. This does seem to be some
form of "collusion" between the SGI STL and libstdc++ which I wasnt
expecting.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Many thanks.

-- 
Kit Smithers