[MacPorts] #55139: RFE: Improve Compiler Management Code

[MacPorts]

#55139: RFE: Improve Compiler Management Code
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  Reporter:  MarcusCalhoun-Lopez  |      Owner:
      Type:  enhancement          |     Status:  new
  Priority:  Normal               |  Milestone:
 Component:  base                 |    Version:
Resolution:                       |   Keywords:
      Port:                       |
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Comment (by kencu):

 My own approach to compiler selection on MacPorts might be somewhat
 different, I will admit.

 Rather than test the oldest compiler that can do the job, for Intel, I
 would force all systems from 10.6 to 10.9 (or 10.10 perhaps) to build
 everything, always, with clang-4.0. Basically, use the cxx11 1.1 PortGroup
 for every build, always, whether c++11 is needed or not, on all older
 systems. Build failures will be minimized, and there will be toolchain
 consistency across the OS versions. I would not use the old original
 compiler for anything. I think it's largely a waste of time to plumb the
 oldest compiler that can do the job.

 At the moment, I think clang-5.0 will generate too many errors to use as
 the day-to-day compiler, but we'll see how that works out.

 Xcode would take some further sorting - you're stuck there unless you're
 going to do something fancy like SDK overlays with the newer clang
 compilers (and otools, NM, strings, libtool, etc). I have done this on my
 system to make xcode build with clang-3.9/libc++ on 10.6.8, but it takes
 some tinkering. Someone who knows how to make SDK overlays could probably
 make this work much more easily.

 For PPC, it's not so easy. gcc6 can't build some things that apple's
 gcc4.2 can build, due to objective-C deficiencies. So you're pretty much
 stuck first trying to see if gcc4.2 can build it, and if not, next trying
 gcc6.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/55139#comment:9>
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