self-taught
GCC stands for GNU Compiler Collection, it is a collection of compilers from the GNU Project that supports various programming languages, hardware architectures, and operating systems.
GCC is distributed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) under the GNU general public license (GNU GPL).
GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain.
It originally supported C and C++ (and was therefore called the GNU C Compiler), but it now supports Rust, COBOL, GO, Objective-C, Objective-C++ and Fortran between others.
GCC vs G++
-
GCC: gnu c compiler
-
G++: gnu c++ compiler
-
gcc will compile .c and .cpp files as C and C++ respectively
-
g++ will compile both .c and .cpp files as C++
-
if you use g++ for linking it will also link the g++ STD libraries
-
gcc compiling .c files has fewer predefined macros
extra macros when compiling .cpp files with cpp or using g++:
#define __GXX_WEAK__ 1
#define __cplusplus 1
#define __DEPRECATED 1
#define __GNUG__ 4
#define __EXCEPTIONS 1
#define __private_extern__ externAlternatives
Flags
Most of the common flags are the same as in Clang:
-E # Run only the preprocessor stage.
-fsyntax-only # Run the preprocessor, parser and semantic analysis stages.
-S # Run the previous stages as well as LLVM generation and optimization stages and target-specific code generation, producing an assembly file.
-c # Run all of the above, plus the assembler, generating a target ".o" object file (no linker)
-save-temps # runs all stages but also saves every intermediate prdoduced file (Keeps .i, .bc, .s, .o, etc)
no stage selection option # If no stage selection option is specified, all stages above are run, and the linker is run to combine the results into an executable or shared library.
-save-temps # Save intermediate compilation results.
-march=architecture # specifies for what architecture for the current platform to compile
# to compile for a different platform+architecture you must use the correct binary:
gcc ecc # will compile for the current platform, and specified architecture (or current if unspecified)
triple-gcc # will compile for the specified triple, for example:
x86_64-pc-linux-gcc ecc # will compile for x86_64 linux machines
# code generation options
-0x # with x = 0,1,2,3,fast,s,g,4
# specifies the level of optimizaziont to use (currently >3 defaults to 3)
# -0fast is the fastest but is unsafe and breaks IEEE compliance
-flto # Enable Link Time Optimization