GCC44, GCC45, GCC46 - Whats the point?

[Landon J Fuller]

On Jun 15, 2010, at 3:41 PM, Jeff Singleton wrote:

> Seriously...what is the point of even having gcc44, gcc45, gcc46 in Macports, if we can't even use the newest compilers inside of Macports?
> 
> I mean, I spend the hours building it, because there are features and enhancements in gcc 4.4 that I would like to use in other apps.

Just about everything built with gcc4+ should be ABI compatible -- since you can link against the MacPorts libraries using any compiler you'd like, I'm not sure I understand why you want to build MacPorts software with a specific compiler?

Obviously there are some notable exceptions, but in those cases the port maintainers do try to standardize on the latest stable/reliable version of GCC when building those ports.

> But, after waiting all this time for gcc44 to build, then searching for some way to force Macports to use the newly built compiler...I end up with the dreaded: "configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables" error.
> 
> ryandesign says forcing Macports to use a non-Xcode compiler is unsupported.
> 
> So ... !!
> 
> What is the point of having gcc44 in the Macports tree, if I can't even use it to build other Macports with?

For use with your own projects.

> Why doesn't Macports make the gcc44+ ports use the same patching that Apple does, and then build it the same way Apple does natively -- so we can freaking use the newer compiler?

Apple's compiler has a -lot- of patching, and Apple is not tracking later GCC releases. It would be herculean task to merge that all in, much less maintain it. 

I suppose that MacPorts could fairly easily use Apple's "driver-driver" and use an Apple-style build to support multiple architectures via the -arch flag, etc -- if someone was inclined to do the work:
	http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gcc/gcc-5659/driverdriver.c

-landonf