embedding gcc?

embedding gcc?

[Ben Dougall]

Hiyer,

I wish to include GCC within a Mac OS X application, to give me, the 
programmer of the application the ability to compile C source code on 
the fly within the application.

I'm hopefully wondering if anyone's got any information or pointers to 
the issue of embedding GCC, as I'm not sure where to start at all?

Has anything like that been done previously?

Any information, much appreciated. Thanks.

Re: embedding gcc?

[bjorn rohde jensen]

Hi there,

  Cant you just drive gcc from your application using exec's?
It is my understanding, that many IDE's do this sort of thing,
and gcc itself does that with the platform assemblers and linkers
as needed.

Yours sincerely,

Bjorn

Re: embedding gcc?

[Andrea 'fwyzard' Bocci]

I usually find that

system ("gcc file.c -o file.o [options] > output 2> errors"); works well 
for me :-)

fwyzard

RE: embedding gcc?

[Buddy Lott]

I just realized I hit 'reply' instead of 'reply to all' in my post to
Ben. 

So here is it (spelling and grammar mistakes included) ... sorry to
those who don't care. ...


-----Original Message-----
From: Buddy Lott [mailto:buddy_lott@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 3:05 PM
To: 'Ben Dougall'
Subject: RE: embedding gcc?

I don't know all the replies to this but I think you are missing one
option....

Why not build your installation script to installation software so that
it will install your code and GCC? You could get a little more fancy and
allow the user to select (update) his/her own version of gcc or use the
one supplied with your software. This would seem to resolve an whole lot
of update, manual, and potentially legal problems related to using the
GCC compilers.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gcc-help-owner@gcc.gnu.org [mailto:gcc-help-owner@gcc.gnu.org]
On
> Behalf Of Ben Dougall
> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 11:37 AM
> To: gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org
> Subject: Re: embedding gcc?
> 
> On Tuesday, December 10, 2002, at 08:05  pm, Buddy Lott wrote:
> 
> > Why not build your installation script to installation software so
that
> > it will install your code and GCC?
> 
> Yeah, I think you're right.
> 
> I was envisaging maybe only needing and using particular parts of GCC,
> so only including and using a stripped down version of it, but using
> GCC as it is, will probably save untold amounts of work and time. So
> your suggestion is probably the best way to do it. Thanks very much.

Re: embedding gcc?

[Ben Dougall]

On Tuesday, December 10, 2002, at 08:05  pm, Buddy Lott wrote:

> Why not build your installation script to installation software so that
> it will install your code and GCC?

Yeah, I think you're right.

I was envisaging maybe only needing and using particular parts of GCC, 
so only including and using a stripped down version of it, but using 
GCC as it is, will probably save untold amounts of work and time. So 
your suggestion is probably the best way to do it. Thanks very much.

Re: embedding gcc?

[Ben Dougall]

Gokhan,

> GCC seems to be actually too big for your scripting system needs to be
> distributed easily.

Size isn't an issue that effects embedding or not embedding. If my app 
requires GCC, whether it's embedded or not, will still result in the 
same total download size – the difference would be one download and 
install, or two separate downloads and installs.

> In fact make sure to read the license agreement, you might not be able
> to do this legally, I mean sell the freely distributed software with
> your software bundle as if you did something new.  I believe GCC has to
> be distributed in its own package, NOT in such bits and pieces for
> profiteering...

As I understand that sort of license, so long as you keep the source 
code open it's fine – you can do what ever the hell you want with it. 
If you're mingling your code with their code, that would mean your own 
code would need to be open source too.

But what I want to know about the technical side of this. How, 
technically could I go about this? Any pointers as to where or how to 
start? I'm also thinking there must have been a previous project that 
needed to include GCC in some way and would be very interested to know 
if anyone knows of such a thing?

Thanks, Ben.

Re: embedding gcc?

[Gokhan Kisacikoglu]

> So I'm still wondering about the possibility of somehow including the
> necessary parts of GCC within my application? How difficult would it
> be? Does anyone know of a previous project or application that has GCC
> embedded? It's got to be possible, right?

GCC seems to be actually too big for your scripting system needs to be
distributed easily.

In fact make sure to read the license agreement, you might not be able
to do this legally, I mean sell the freely distributed software with
your software bundle as if you did something new. I believe GCC has to
be distributed in its own package, NOT in such bits and pieces for
profiteering...

Regards,
Gokhan

Re: embedding gcc?

[Ben Dougall]

Thanks very much for the replies. Basically you're saying, use the GCC 
that's already on my computer and call it from the app as an external 
service to it. This is what someone has told me elsewhere too.

I'm sure this is possible and makes complete sense, but my ideal goal 
is to allow people to easily install this application that I'm making, 
and I wish that to be one simple install. A self contained thing. On 
the Apple Mac in OS X, GCC comes with the developer tools. Most people 
will not have this installed.

So I'm still wondering about the possibility of somehow including the 
necessary parts of GCC within my application? How difficult would it 
be? Does anyone know of a previous project or application that has GCC 
embedded? It's got to be possible, right?