Case history: Installing libstdc++ on i686-pc-linux-gnu (Red Hat)

[Martin v. Loewis]

> Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous query about sstream.h;
> it turned out to be called just "sstream", not "sstream.h", and
> I retrieved that file from the mailing list archive.

I assume then that you took Magnus Fromreide's implementation from the
mailing list archive, right?

> Unfortunately the libstdc++ RPM file I have
> (libstdc++-devel-2.95.2-3.i386.rpm) isn't complete: it doesn't have
> sstream, and I imagine it's missing other things too.

No, it is complete. This RPM is not supposed to contain sstream, since
Magnus' code has not been included in gcc 2.95, yet.

> (I wonder why they call it libstdc++ 2.95 if libstdc++ is only up to
> 2.90.8?!?)

Because this is an RPM of libstdc++ v2, and not one of libstdc++ v3,
and because it is named after the gcc version which included it,
namely gcc 2.95.2.

> So I set out to actually build libstdc++ like everyone else :-) *

I'd advise against that. At this point, libstdc++ v3 is still
experimental and not for production use; users of it are still
expected to have a good knowledge of GCC and C++.

Instead, I'd recommend to use gcc 2.95.2, and the C++ library that
came with it. If you *absolutely* need sstream, then you can just put
Magnus' version of sstream into your header files.

> I thought perhaps that the ../.. construct was assuming the build
> directory would be in the source tree, but the readme file says not
> to do this.

No, it assumed that a build directory was present. However, RPMs
typically don't include a build directory.

> So it seems that libstdc++ really CAN'T be built without the gcc
> source, unless the configure script is hacked or something, which
> seems overwhelming.

I think for the most recent libstdc++ v3 snapshot, which has the
version number 2.90.8, this is indeed the case. I don't know what
"overwhelming" means, so I can't comment on that part.

> p.s.  Total user time elapsed: about five days, about half time
> working on this problem.

If you had asked the right questions to begin with, and used
precompiled binaries where available, it would have been much easier.

Martin