compilers on Lion

[Ken Cunningham]

On 2018-09-08, at 10:45 PM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

> 
> Ken,
> 
> 

> What about adding this your explanation to the `LibcxxOnOlderSystems'
> page?  In particular, people who are mainly interested in porting C++
> GNU software to the Mac (and using it, of course) should rather stay
> with libstdc++, if I understand you correctly.  lilypond, for example,
> is a command line program and doesn't need any of the special Mac
> features...

No doubt, the best thing would be to see what is needed to make it compile with clang against libc++.

However, if that is not possible, and if the software doesn't provide any c++ libraries  or use any c++ libraries , you can build it with gcc and link it against libstdc++ and it will work and be internally consistent in it's own environment.


> 
>> There _is_ indeed a way for gcc to build against libc++, as you
>> pointed out in a subsequent email, and one of our contributors
>> (Rene) went to the trouble of patching gcc to allow it to accept the
>> "-stdlib=libc++" flag to make this easy. But in the end, he could
>> not get any purchase for his work either from MacPorts or from gcc,
>> and so it went dormant.
> 
> Please post a link.  Is Rene's patch integrated into macports?

I think this is all of it <https://github.com/RJVB/macstrop/blob/master/lang/gcc6/files/patch-use-libcxx.diff>. There may be some more to it in the associated Portfile. Rene would be happy to hear someone found a good use for it.

It is not integrated into macports -- we tend to be very conservative with toolchain tweaks in case of unforeseen disasters. I know he talked with gcc about it, not sure where that all went.


Ken