From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 30106 invoked by alias); 5 Jul 2002 20:11:29 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Received: (qmail 30097 invoked from network); 5 Jul 2002 20:11:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO Cantor.suse.de) (213.95.15.193) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 5 Jul 2002 20:11:28 -0000 Received: from Hermes.suse.de (Charybdis.suse.de [213.95.15.201]) by Cantor.suse.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 734F5149E7; Fri, 5 Jul 2002 22:11:27 +0200 (MEST) Received: from aj by arthur.inka.de with local (Exim 3.34 #1) id 17QZPw-0005Ug-00; Fri, 05 Jul 2002 22:11:00 +0200 Mail-Copies-To: never To: Mark Mitchell Cc: "gcc@gcc.gnu.org" Subject: Re: C++ binary compatibility between GCC 3.1 and GCC 3.2? References: <18910000.1025898677@gandalf.codesourcery.com> From: Andreas Jaeger Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 14:22:00 -0000 In-Reply-To: <18910000.1025898677@gandalf.codesourcery.com> (Mark Mitchell's message of "Fri, 05 Jul 2002 12:51:17 -0700") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.090007 (Oort Gnus v0.07) XEmacs/21.4 (Artificial Intelligence, i386-suse-linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-SW-Source: 2002-07/txt/msg00232.txt.bz2 Mark Mitchell writes: >> What does this mean for binary compatibility between GCC 3.1 and GCC >> 3.2? With the introduction of GCC 3 and its ABI, the expectation by >> users is that we won't have binary incompatible changes. Unfortunatly >> the - AFAIK valid - bug reports show that the ABI implemention was >> buggy and therefore needed to change. > > Yes, the implementation had some bugs. It was also the case that the > ABI specification had some bugs/omissions/unclarities. (The most recent > substantive change to the ABI specification occurred about a week ago.) > > There are getting to be fewer and fewer bugs and the rate of change to > the ABI is approaching zero, but I, like you, am disappointed that we're > still breaking the C++ ABI between major releases of the compiler. > > In any case, GCC 3.1 and GCC 3.2 will not be 100% binary compatible > with respect to the C++ ABI. How severe is this? Will people encounter this in every day code or is only in some esoteric situations? > I can't say what that might mean as a distributor. Putting on my distributor hat - and answering without much thinking about all the implications - it would be better to have 3.1.1 and 3.2 compatible (with the cost of 3.1 and 3.1.1 not compatible to each other). Alternativly we could rename GCC 3.1.1 to GCC 3.2.1 and release that in a few weeks time (this would imply to rename mainline to GCC 3.3 prerelease and have GCC 3.3 release in autumn). As you see, I haven't made my up mind and do not know what the best solution is here. Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger SuSE Labs aj@suse.de private aj@arthur.inka.de http://www.suse.de/~aj