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|
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="libstdc++, libstdc++-v3, GCC, g++, libg++, STL">
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="FAQ for the GNU libstdc++ effort.">
<title>libstdc++-v3 FAQ</title>
<link rel="StyleSheet" href="../lib3styles.css">
<!--
** Locations of "the most recent snapshot is the Nth" text are
** answers 1_1, 1_4, 4_1.
-->
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="centered">libstdc++ Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
<p>The latest version of this document is always available at
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/faq/">
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/faq/</a>. The main documentation
page is at
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/documentation.html">
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/documentation.html</a>.
</p>
<p>To the <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/">libstdc++-v3 homepage</a>.
<!-- ####################################################### -->
<hr>
<h1>Questions</h1>
<ol>
<li><a href="#1_0">General Information</a>
<!-- I suspect these will mostly be links to/into existing documents. -->
<ol>
<li><a href="#1_1">What is libstdc++-v3?</a>
<li><a href="#1_2">Why should I use libstdc++?</a>
<li><a href="#1_3">Who's in charge of it?</a>
<li><a href="#1_4">How do I get libstdc++?</a>
<li><a href="#1_5">When is libstdc++ going to be finished?</a>
<li><a href="#1_6">How do I contribute to the effort?</a>
<li><a href="#1_7">What happened to libg++? I need that!</a>
<li><a href="#1_8">What if I have more questions?</a>
<li><a href="#1_9">What are the license terms for libstdc++-v3?</a>
</ol>
<li><a href="#2_0">Installation</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#2_1">How do I install libstdc++-v3?</a>
<li><a href="#2_2">[removed]</a>
<li><a href="#2_3">What is this CVS thing that you keep
mentioning?</a>
<li><a href="#2_4">How do I know if it works?</a>
<li><a href="#2_5">This library is HUGE! And what's libsupc++?</a>
</ol>
<li><a href="#3_0">Platform-Specific Issues</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#3_1">Can libstdc++-v3 be used with <my
favorite compiler>?</a>
<li><a href="#3_2">[removed]</a>
<li><a href="#3_3">[removed]</a>
<li><a href="#3_4">I can't use 'long long' on Solaris</a>
<li><a href="#3_5"><code>_XOPEN_SOURCE</code> /
<code>_GNU_SOURCE</code> / etc is always defined</a>
<li><a href="#3_6">OS X ctype.h is broken! How can I hack it?</a>
</ol>
<li><a href="#4_0">Known Bugs and Non-Bugs</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#4_1">What works already?</a>
<li><a href="#4_2">Bugs in gcc/g++ (not libstdc++-v3)</a>
<li><a href="#4_3">Bugs in the C++ language/lib specification</a>
<li><a href="#4_4">Things in libstdc++ that only look like bugs</a><ul>
<li><a href="#4_4_iostreamclear">reopening a stream fails</a>
<li><a href="#4_4_Weff">-Weffc++ complains too much</a>
<li><a href="#4_4_rel_ops">"ambiguous overloads"
after including an old-style header</a>
<li><a href="#4_4_interface">The g++-3 headers are
<strong>not ours</strong></a>
<li><a href="#4_4_glibc">compilation errors from streambuf.h</a>
<li><a href="#4_4_checks">errors about <em>*Cconcept</em> and
<em>constraints</em> in the STL...</a>
<li><a href="#4_4_dlsym">program crashes when using library code
in a dynamically-loaded library</a>
</ul>
<li><a href="#4_5">Aw, that's easy to fix!</a>
</ol>
<li><a href="#5_0">Miscellaneous</a>
<ol>
<li><a href="#5_1">string::iterator is not char*;
vector<T>::iterator is not T*</a>
<li><a href="#5_2">What's next after libstdc++-v3?</a>
<li><a href="#5_3">What about the STL from SGI?</a>
<li><a href="#5_4">Extensions and Backward Compatibility</a>
<li><a href="#5_5">[removed]</a>
<li><a href="#5_6">Is libstdc++-v3 thread-safe?</a>
<li><a href="#5_7">How do I get a copy of the ISO C++ Standard?</a>
<li><a href="#5_8">What's an ABI and why is it so messy?</a>
</ol>
</ol>
<hr>
<!-- ####################################################### -->
<h1><a name="1_0">1.0 General Information</a></h1>
<!-- I suspect these will mostly be links to/into existing documents. -->
<h2><a name="1_1">1.1 What is libstdc++-v3?</a></h2>
<p>The GNU Standard C++ Library v3 is an
ongoing project to implement the ISO 14882 Standard C++ library
as described in chapters 17 through 27 and annex D. As the
library reaches stable plateaus, it is captured in a snapshot
and released. The current release is
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/download.html">the
fourteenth snapshot</a>. For those who want to see exactly how
far the project has come, or just want the latest
bleeding-edge code, the up-to-date source is available over
anonymous CVS, and can even be browsed over the Web (see below).
</p>
<p>The older libstdc++-v2 project is no longer maintained; the code
has been completely replaced and rewritten.
<a href="#4_4_interface">If you are using V2</a>, then you need to
report bugs to your system vendor, not to the V3 list.
</p>
<p>A more formal description of the V3 goals can be found in the
official <a href="../17_intro/DESIGN">design document</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_2">1.2 Why should I use libstdc++?</a></h2>
<p>The completion of the ISO C++ standardization gave the
C++ community a powerful set of reuseable tools in the form
of the C++ Standard Library. However, all existing C++
implementations are (as the Draft Standard used to say)
"incomplet and incorrekt," and many suffer from
limitations of the compilers that use them.
</p>
<p>The GNU C/C++/FORTRAN/<pick-a-language> compiler
(<code>gcc</code>, <code>g++</code>, etc) is widely considered to be
one of the leading compilers in the world. Its development
has recently been taken over by the
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/">GCC team</a>. All of
the rapid development and near-legendary
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.0/buildstat.html">portability</a>
that are the hallmarks of an open-source project are being
applied to libstdc++.
</p>
<p>That means that all of the Standard classes and functions
(such as <code>string</code>, <code>vector<></code>, iostreams,
and algorithms) will be freely available and fully compliant.
Programmers will no longer need to "roll their own"
nor be worried about platform-specific incompatibilities.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_3">1.3 Who's in charge of it?</a></h2>
<p>The libstdc++ project is contributed to by several developers
all over the world, in the same way as GCC or Linux.
Benjamin Kosnik, Gabriel Dos Reis, Phil Edwards, and Ulrich
Drepper are the lead maintainers of the CVS archive.
</p>
<p>Development and discussion is held on the libstdc++ mailing
list. Subscribing to the list, or searching the list
archives, is open to everyone. You can read instructions for
doing so on the <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/">homepage</a>.
If you have questions, ideas, code, or are just curious, sign up!
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_4">1.4 How do I get libstdc++?</a></h2>
<p>The fourteenth (and latest) snapshot of libstdc++-v3 is
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/download.html">available via
ftp</a>.
</p>
<p>The <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/libstdc++/">homepage</a>
has instructions for retrieving the latest CVS sources, and for
browsing the CVS sources over the web.
</p>
<p>The subset commonly known as the Standard Template Library
(chapters 23 through 25, mostly) is adapted from the final release
of the SGI STL.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_5">1.5 When is libstdc++ going to be finished?</a></h2>
<!-- <p>Nathan Myers gave the best of all possible answers in <A
href="http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=469581698&fmt=text">a
Usenet article</a>.</p>
which is no longer available, thanks deja...-->
<p>Nathan Myers gave the best of all possible answers, responding to a
Usenet article asking this question: <em>Sooner, if you help.</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_6">1.6 How do I contribute to the effort?</a></h2>
<p>Here is <a href="../17_intro/contribute.html">a
page devoted to this topic</a>. Subscribing to the mailing
list (see above, or the homepage) is a very good idea if you
have something to contribute, or if you have spare time and
want to help. Contributions don't have to be in the form of
source code; anybody who is willing to help write
documentation, for example, or has found a bug in code that
we all thought was working, is more than welcome!
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_7">1.7 What happened to libg++? I need that!</a></h2>
<p>The most recent libg++ README states that libg++ is no longer
being actively maintained. It should not be used for new
projects, and is only being kicked along to support older code.
</p>
<p>The libg++ was designed and created when there was no Standard
to provide guidance. Classes like linked lists are now provided
for by <code>list<T></code> and do not need to be created by
<code>genclass</code>. (For that matter, templates exist now and
are well-supported, whereas genclass (mostly) predates them.)
</p>
<p>There are other classes in libg++ that are not specified in the
ISO Standard (e.g., statistical analysis). While there are a
lot of really useful things that are used by a lot of people
(e.g., statistics :-), the Standards Committee couldn't include
everything, and so a lot of those "obvious" classes
didn't get included.
</p>
<p>Since libstdc++ is an implementation of the Standard Library, we
have no plans at this time to include non-Standard utilities
in the implementation, however handy they are. (The extensions
provided in the SGI STL aren't maintained by us and don't get
a lot of our attention, because they don't require a lot of our
time.) It is entirely plausable that the "useful stuff"
from libg++ might be extracted into an updated utilities library,
but nobody has stated such a project yet.
</p>
<!-- The advertisement, so to speak, might have to go. Hmmmmm. -->
<p>(The <a href="http://www.boost.org/">Boost</a> site houses free
C++ libraries that do varying things, and happened to be started
by members of the Standards Committee. Certain "useful
stuff" classes will probably migrate there.)
</p>
<p>For the bold and/or desperate, the
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/fom_serv/cache/33.html">GCC FAQ</a>
describes where to find the last libg++ source.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_8">1.8 What if I have more questions?</a></h2>
<p>If you have read the README and RELEASE-NOTES files, and your
question remains unanswered, then just ask the mailing list.
At present, you do not need to be subscribed to the list to
send a message to it. More information is available on the
homepage (including how to browse the list archives); to send
to the list, use <a href="mailto:libstdc++@gcc.gnu.org">
<code>libstdc++@gcc.gnu.org</code></a>.
</p>
<p>If you have a question that you think should be included here,
or if you have a question <em>about</em> a question/answer here,
contact <a href="mailto:pme@gcc.gnu.org">Phil Edwards</a>
or <a href="mailto:gdr@gcc.gnu.org">Gabriel Dos Reis</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="1_9">1.9 What are the license terms for libstdc++-v3?</a></h2>
<p>See <a href="../17_intro/license.html">our license description</a>
for these and related questions.
</p>
<hr>
<h1><a name="2_0">2.0 Installation</a></h1>
<h2><a name="2_1">2.1 How do I install libstdc++-v3?</a></h2>
<p>Complete instructions are not given here (this is a FAQ, not
an installation document), but the tools required are few:
</p>
<ul>
<li> A 3.x release of GCC. Note that building GCC is much
easier and more automated than building the GCC 2.[78]
series was. If you are using GCC 2.95, you can still
build earlier snapshots of libstdc++.
<li> GNU Make is recommended, but should not be required.
<li> The GNU Autotools are needed if you are messing with
the configury or makefiles.
</ul>
<p>The file <a href="../documentation.html">documentation.html</a>
provides a good overview of the steps necessary to build, install,
and use the library. Instructions for configuring the library
with new flags such as --enable-threads are there also, as well as
patches and instructions for working with GCC 2.95.
</p>
<p>The top-level install.html and
<a href="../17_intro/RELEASE-NOTES">RELEASE-NOTES</a> files contain
the exact build and installation instructions. You may wish to
browse those files over CVSweb ahead of time to get a feel for
what's required. RELEASE-NOTES is located in the
".../docs/17_intro/" directory of the distribution.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="2_2">2.2 [removed]</a></h2>
<p>This question has become moot and has been removed. The stub
is here to preserve numbering (and hence links/bookmarks).
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="2_3">2.3 What is this CVS thing that you
keep mentioning?</a></h2>
<p>The <em>Concurrent Versions System</em> is one of several revision
control packages. It was selected for GNU projects because it's
free (speech), free (beer), and very high quality. The <A
href="http://www.gnu.org/software/cvs/cvs.html">CVS entry in
the GNU software catalogue</a> has a better description as
well as a
<a href="http://www.cvshome.org/">link to the makers of CVS</a>.
</p>
<p>The "anonymous client checkout" feature of CVS is
similar to anonymous FTP in that it allows anyone to retrieve
the latest libstdc++ sources.
</p>
<p>After the first of April, American users will have a
"/pharmacy" command-line option...
<!-- wonder how long that'll live -->
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="2_4">2.4 How do I know if it works?</a></h2>
<p>libstdc++-v3 comes with its own testsuite. You do not need
to actually install the library ("<code>make
install</code>") to run the testsuite.
</p>
<p>To run the testsuite on the library after building it, use
"make check" while in your build directory. To run
the testsuite on the library after building and installing it,
use "make check-install" instead.
</p>
<p>If you find bugs in the testsuite programs themselves, or if you
think of a new test program that should be added to the suite,
<strong>please</strong> write up your idea and send it to the list!
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="2_5">2.4 This library is HUGE! And what's libsupc++?</a></h2>
<p>Usually the size of libraries on disk isn't noticeable. When a
link editor (or simply "linker") pulls things from a
static archive library, only the necessary object files are copied
into your executable, not the entire library. Unfortunately, even
if you only need a single function or variable from an object file,
the entire object file is extracted. (There's nothing unique to C++
or libstdc++-v3 about this; it's just common behavior, given here
for background reasons.)
</p>
<p>Some of the object files which make up libstdc++.a are rather large.
If you create a statically-linked executable with
<code> -static</code>, those large object files are suddenly part
of your executable. Historically the best way around this was to
only place a very few functions (often only a single one) in each
source/object file; then extracting a single function is the same
as extracting a single .o file. For libstdc++-v3 this is only
possible to a certain extent; the object files in question contain
template classes and template functions, pre-instantiated, and
splitting those up causes severe maintenance headaches.
</p>
<p>It's not a bug, and it's not really a problem. Nevertheless, some
people don't like it, so here are two pseudo-solutions:
</p>
<p>If the only functions from libstdc++.a which you need are language
support functions (those listed in
<a href="../18_support/howto.html">clause 18</a> of the standard,
e.g., <code>new</code> and <code>delete</code>), then try linking
against <code>libsupc++.a</code> (usually specifying
<code>-lsupc++</code> when calling g++ for the final link step will
do it). This library contains only those support routines, one per
object file. But if you are using anything from the rest of the
library, such as IOStreams or vectors, then you'll still need
pieces from <code>libstdc++.a</code>.
</p>
<p>The second method is one we hope to incorporate into the library
build process. Some platforms can place each function and variable
into its own section in a .o file. The GNU linker can then perform
garbage collection on unused sections; this reduces the situation
to only copying needed functions into the executable, as before,
but all happens automatically.
</p>
<p>Unfortunately the garbage collection in GNU ld is buggy; sections
(corresponding to functions and variables) which <em>are</em> used
are mistakenly removed, leading to horrible crashes when your
executable starts up. For the time being, this feature is not used
when building the library.
</p>
<hr>
<h1><a name="3_0">3.0 Platform-Specific Issues</a></h1>
<h2><a name="3_1">3.1 Can libstdc++-v3 be used with <my
favorite compiler>?</a></h2>
<p>Probably not. Yet.</p>
<p>Because GCC advances so rapidly, development and testing of
libstdc++ is being done almost entirely under that compiler.
If you are curious about whether other, lesser compilers
(*grin*) support libstdc++, you are more than welcome to try.
Configuring and building the library (see above) will still
require certain tools, however. Also keep in mind that
<em>building</em> libstdc++ does not imply that your compiler
will be able to <em>use</em> all of the features found in the
C++ Standard Library.
</p>
<p>Since the goal of ISO Standardization is for all C++
implementations to be able to share code, the final libstdc++
should, in theory, be usable under any ISO-compliant
compiler. It will still be targeted and optimized for
GCC/g++, however.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="3_2">3.2 [removed]</a></h2>
<p>This question has become moot and has been removed. The stub
is here to preserve numbering (and hence links/bookmarks).
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="3_3">3.3 [removed]</a></h2>
<p>This question has become moot and has been removed. The stub
is here to preserve numbering (and hence links/bookmarks).
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="3_4">3.4 I can't use 'long long' on Solaris</a></h2>
<p>By default we try to support the C99 <code>long long</code> type.
This requires that certain functions from your C library be present.
</p>
<p>Up through release 3.0.2 the tests performed were too general, and
this feature was disabled when it did not need to be. The most
commonly reported platform affected was Solaris.
</p>
<p>This has been fixed for 3.0.3 and onwards.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="3_5">3.5 <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE</code> / <code>_GNU_SOURCE</code>
/ etc is always defined</a></h2>
<p>On Solaris, g++ (but not gcc) always defines the preprocessor
macro <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE</code>. On GNU/Linux, the same happens
with <code>_GNU_SOURCE</code>. (This is not an exhaustive list;
other macros and other platforms are also affected.)
</p>
<p>These macros are typically used in C library headers, guarding new
versions of functions from their older versions. The C++ standard
library includes the C standard library, but it requires the C90
version, which for backwards-compatability reasons is often not the
default for many vendors.
</p>
<p>More to the point, the C++ standard requires behavior which is only
available on certain platforms after certain symbols are defined.
Usually the issue involves I/O-related typedefs. In order to
ensure correctness, the compiler simply predefines those symbols.
</p>
<p>Note that it's not enough to #define them only when the library is
being built (during installation). Since we don't have an 'export'
keyword, much of the library exists as headers, which means that
the symbols must also be defined as your programs are parsed and
compiled.
</p>
<p>To see which symbols are defined, look for CPLUSPLUS_CPP_SPEC in
the gcc config headers for your target (and try changing them to
see what happens when building complicated code). You can also run
<code>"g++ -E -dM - < /dev/null"</code> to display
a list of predefined macros for any particular installation.
</p>
<p>This has been discussed on the mailing lists
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/cgi-bin/htsearch?method=and&format=builtin-long&sort=score&words=_XOPEN_SOURCE+Solaris">quite a bit</a>.
</p>
<p>This method is something of a wart. We'd like to find a cleaner
solution, but nobody yet has contributed the time.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="3_6">3.6 OS X ctype.h is broken! How can I hack it?</a></h2>
<p>This is a long-standing bug in the OS X support. Fortunately,
the patch is quite simple, and well-known.
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2002-03/msg00817.html"> Here's a
link to the solution.</a>
</p>
<hr>
<h1><a name="4_0">4.0 Known Bugs and Non-Bugs</a></h1>
<em>Note that this section can get rapdily outdated -- such is the
nature of an open-source project. For the latest information, join
the mailing list or look through recent archives. The RELEASE-
NOTES and BUGS files are generally kept up-to-date.</em>
<p>For 3.0.1, the most common "bug" is an apparently missing
"<code>../</code>" in include/Makefile, resulting in files
like gthr.h and gthr-single.h not being found.
</p>
<p>Please read
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/install/configure.html">the configuration
instructions for GCC</a>,
specifically the part about configuring in a separate build directory,
and how strongly recommended it is. Building in the source directory
is fragile, is rarely tested, and tends to break, as in this case.
This was fixed for 3.0.2.
</p>
<p><strong>Please do not report these as bugs. We know about them.</strong>
Reporting this -- or any other problem that's already been fixed --
hinders the development of GCC, because we have to take time to
respond to your report. Thank you.
</p>
<h2><a name="4_1">4.1 What works already?</a></h2>
<p>This is a verbatim clip from the "Status" section
of the RELEASE-NOTES for the latest snapshot. For a list of
fixed bugs, see that file.
</p>
<!-- Yeah, I meant that "verbatim clip" thing literally... :-) -->
<pre>
New:
---
(post 3.0.97)
- more doxygen documentation
- more named locale fixups
- stdio_filebuf that takes fd, FILE
- io performance tuning
- allocation tuning, valgrind fixups
- __cxa_demangle now supported
(3.0.97)
- more doxygen documentation.
- more named locale bug fixes
- support for symbol versioning when using GNU ld >= 2.12
- wide-io
- tuning for executable size
(3.0.96)
- more doxygen documentation.
- extensions moved out of namespace std
- HPUX long long support
- more string optimizations
- support for NetBSD cross compiles
- concept_check merge from boost
- header simplification
- named locale bug shakeout
- thread testsuite
(3.0.95)
- add S390, m68k, x86-64 support.
- doxygen documentation has been extended, including man pages.
- verbose terminate handling has been added.
- some libsupc++ tweaks
- warnings for deprecated headers now active.
- dejagnu testsuite preliminary documentation.
- dejagnu testsuite default.
- dejagnu testsuite cross compiler, multilib safe.
- long long iostreams on by default, rework of ISO C99 support.
- iterator re-write and testsuites.
- container testsuites.
- allocator revamp and testsuites.
- more concept-checking work.
- basic_string optimization and MT fixes.
- new limits implementation.
- update -fno-exceptions code, verify it works.
- full named locale support fpr all facets, choice of gnu,
ieee_1003.1-200x (POSIX 2), or generic models. Full support depends
on target OS and underlying "C" library support.
</pre>
<hr>
<h2><a name="4_2">4.2 Bugs in gcc/g++ (not libstdc++-v3)</a></h2>
<p>This is by no means meant to be complete nor exhaustive, but
mentions some problems that users may encounter when building
or using libstdc++. If you are experiencing one of these
problems, you can find more information on the libstdc++ and
the GCC mailing lists.
</p>
<p>Before reporting a bug, examine the
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html">bugs database</a> with the
category set to "libstdc++". The BUGS file in the source
tree also tracks known serious problems.
</p>
<ul>
<li>Debugging is problematic, due to bugs in line-number generation
(mostly fixed in the compiler) and gdb lagging behind the
compiler (lack of personnel). We recommend configuring the
compiler using <code>--with-dwarf2</code> if the DWARF2
debugging format is not already the default on your platform.
Also,
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2002-02/msg00034.html">changing your
GDB settings</a> can have a profound effect on your C++ debugging
experiences. :-)</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<h2><a name="4_3">4.3 Bugs in the C++ language/lib specification</a></h2>
<p>Yes, unfortunately, there are some. In a
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/1998/msg00006.html">message
to the list</a>, Nathan Myers announced that he has started a list of
problems in the ISO C++ Standard itself, especially with
regard to the chapters that concern the library. The list
itself is
<a href="http://www.cantrip.org/draft-bugs.txt">posted on his
website</a>. Developers who are having problems interpreting
the Standard may wish to consult his notes.
</p>
<p>For those people who are not part of the ISO Library Group
(i.e., nearly all of us needing to read this page in the first
place :-), a public list of the library defects is occasionally
published <a href="http://anubis.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/">here</a>.
Some of these have resulted in <a href="#5_2">code changes</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="4_4">4.4 Things in libstdc++ that only look like bugs</a></h2>
<p>There are things which are not bugs in the compiler (4.2) nor
the language specification (4.3), but aren't really bugs in
libstdc++, either. Really! Please do not report these as bugs.
</p>
<a name="4_4_Weff">
<p><strong>-Weffc++</strong>
The biggest of these is the quadzillions of warnings about the
library headers emitted when <code>-Weffc++</code> is used. Making
libstdc++ "-Weffc++-clean" is not a goal of the project,
for a few reasons. Mainly, that option tries to enforce
object-oriented programming, while the Standard Library isn't
necessarily trying to be OO.
</p>
</a>
<a name="4_4_iostreamclear">
<p><strong>reopening a stream fails</strong>
Did I just say that -Weffc++ was our biggest false-bug report? I
lied. (It used to be.) Today it seems to be reports that after
executing a sequence like
<pre>
#include <fstream>
...
std::fstream fs("a_file");
// .
// . do things with fs...
// .
fs.close();
fs.open("a_new_file");</pre>
all operations on the re-opened <code>fs</code> will fail, or at
least act very strangely. Yes, they often will, especially if
<code>fs</code> reached the EOF state on the previous file. The
reason is that the state flags are <strong>not</strong> cleared
on a successful call to open(). The standard unfortunately did
not specify behavior in this case, and to everybody's great sorrow,
the <a href="../ext/howto.html#5">proposed LWG resolution</a> (see
DR #22) is to leave the flags unchanged. You must insert a call
to <code>fs.clear()</code> between the calls to close() and open(),
and then everything will work like we all expect it to work.
</p>
</a>
<a name="4_4_rel_ops">
<p><strong>rel_ops</strong>
Another is the <code>rel_ops</code> namespace and the template
comparison operator functions contained therein. If they become
visible in the same namespace as other comparison functions
(e.g., '<code>using</code>' them and the <iterator> header),
then you will suddenly be faced with huge numbers of ambiguity
errors. This was discussed on the -v3 list; Nathan Myers
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2001-01/msg00247.html">sums
things up here</a>. The collisions with vector/string iterator
types have been fixed for 3.1. <!-- more links to email here -->
</p>
</a>
<a name="4_4_interface"><h3>The g++-3 headers are
<em>not ours</em></h3>
<p>If you have found an extremely broken header file which is
causing problems for you, look carefully before submitting a
"high" priority bug report (which you probably shouldn't
do anyhow; see the last paragraph of the page describing
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/gnatswrite.html">the GCC bug database</a>).
</p>
<p>If the headers are in <code>${prefix}/include/g++-3</code>, or if
the installed library's name looks like <code>libstdc++-2.10.a</code>
or <code>libstdc++-libc6-2.10.so</code>,
then you are using the old libstdc++-v2 library, which is nonstandard
and unmaintained. Do not report problems with -v2 to the -v3
mailing list.
</p>
<p>Currently our header files are installed in
<code>${prefix}/include/g++-v3</code> (see the 'v'?). This may
change with the next release of GCC, as it may be too confusing,
but <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-10/msg00732.html">the
question has not yet been decided</a>.
</p>
</a>
<a name="4_4_glibc">
<p><strong>glibc</strong>
If you're on a GNU/Linux system and have just upgraded to
glibc 2.2, but are still using gcc 2.95.2, then you should have
read the glibc FAQ, specifically 2.34:
<pre>
2.34. When compiling C++ programs, I get a compilation error in streambuf.h.
{BH} You are using g++ 2.95.2? After upgrading to glibc 2.2, you need to
apply a patch to the include files in /usr/include/g++, because the fpos_t
type has changed in glibc 2.2. The patch is at
http://clisp.cons.org/~haible/gccinclude-glibc-2.2-compat.diff
</pre>
Note that 2.95.x shipped with the
<a href="#4_4_interface">old v2 library</a> which is no longer
maintained. Also note that gcc 2.95.3 fixes this problem, but
requires a separate patch for libstdc++-v3.
</p>
</a>
<a name="4_4_checks">
<p><strong>concept checks</strong>
If you see compilation errors containing messages about
<code> <em>foo</em>Concept </code>and a<code> constraints </code>
member function, then most likely you have violated one of the
requirements for types used during instantiation of template
containers and functions. For example, EqualityComparableConcept
appears if your types must be comparable with == and you have not
provided this capability (a typo, or wrong visibility, or you
just plain forgot, etc).
</p>
<p>More information, including how to optionally enable/disable the
checks, is available
<a href="../19_diagnostics/howto.html#3">here</a>.
</p>
</a>
<a name="4_4_dlsym">
<p><strong>dlopen/dlsym</strong>
If you are using the C++ library across dynamically-loaded
objects, make certain that you are passing the correct options
when compiling and linking:
<pre>
// compile the library components
g++ -fPIC -c a.cc
g++ -fPIC -c b.cc
...
g++ -fPIC -c z.cc
// create the library
g++ -fPIC -shared -rdynamic -o libfoo.so a.o b.o ... z.o
// link the executable
g++ -fPIC -rdynamic -o foo ... -L. -lfoo -ldl</pre></p>
</a>
<hr>
<h2><a name="4_5">4.5 Aw, that's easy to fix!</a></h2>
<p>If you have found a bug in the library and you think you have
a working fix, then send it in! The main GCC site has a page
on <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html">submitting
patches</a> that covers the procedure, but for libstdc++ you
should also send the patch to our mailing list in addition to
the GCC patches mailing list. The libstdc++
<a href="../17_intro/contribute.html">contributors' page</a>
also talks about how to submit patches.
</p>
<p>In addition to the description, the patch, and the ChangeLog
entry, it is a Good Thing if you can additionally create a small
test program to test for the presence of the bug that your
patch fixes. Bugs have a way of being reintroduced; if an old
bug creeps back in, it will be caught immediately by the
<a href="#2_4">testsuite</a> -- but only if such a test exists.
</p>
<hr>
<h1><a name="5_0">5.0 Miscellaneous</a></h1>
<h2><a name="5_1">5.1 string::iterator is not char*;
vector<T>::iterator is not T*</a></h2>
<p>If you have code that depends on container<T> iterators
being implemented as pointer-to-T, your code is broken.
</p>
<p>While there are arguments for iterators to be implemented in
that manner, A) they aren't very good ones in the long term,
and B) they were never guaranteed by the Standard anyway. The
type-safety achieved by making iterators a real class rather
than a typedef for <code>T*</code> outweighs nearly all opposing
arguments.
</p>
<p>Code which does assume that a vector iterator <code> i </code>
is a pointer can often be fixed by changing <code> i </code> in
certain expressions to <code> &*i </code>. Future revisions
of the Standard are expected to bless this usage for
vector<> (but not for basic_string<>).
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_2">5.2 What's next after libstdc++-v3?</a></h2>
<p>Hopefully, not much. The goal of libstdc++-v3 is to produce
a fully-compliant, fully-portable Standard Library. After that,
we're mostly done: there won't <em>be</em> any more compliance
work to do. However:
</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The ISO Committee will meet periodically to review Defect Reports
in the C++ Standard. Undoubtedly some of these will result in
changes to the Standard, which will be reflected in patches to
libstdc++. Some of that is already happening, see 4.2. Some of
those changes are being predicted by the library maintainers, and
we add code to the library based on what the current proposed
resolution specifies. Those additions are listed in
<a href="../ext/howto.html#5">the extensions page</a>.
</p>
<li><p>Performance tuning. Lots of performance tuning. This too is
already underway for post-3.0 releases, starting with memory
expansion in container classes and buffer usage in synchronized
stream objects.
</p>
<li><p>An ABI for libstdc++ is being developed, so that
multiple binary-incompatible copies of the library can be replaced
with a single backwards-compatible library, like libgcc_s.so is.
</p>
<li><p>The current libstdc++ contains extensions to the Library which
must be explicitly requested by client code (for example, the
hash tables from SGI). Other extensions may be added to
libstdc++-v3 if they seem to be "standard" enough.
(For example, the "long long" type from C99.)
Bugfixes and rewrites (to improve or fix thread safety, for
instance) will of course be a continuing task.
</p>
</ol>
<p><a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/1999/msg00080.html">This
question</a> about the next libstdc++ prompted some brief but
interesting
<a href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/1999/msg00084.html">speculation</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_3">5.3 What about the STL from SGI?</a></h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sgi.com/Technology/STL/">STL from SGI</a>,
version 3.3, was the most recent merge of the STL codebase. The
code in libstdc++ contains many fixes and changes, and it is
very likely that the SGI code is no longer under active
development. We expect that no future merges will take place.
</p>
<p>In particular, <code>string</code> is not from SGI and makes no
use of their "rope" class (which is included as an
optional extension), nor is <code>valarray</code> and some others.
Classes like <code>vector<></code> are, however.
</p>
<p>The FAQ for SGI's STL (one jump off of their main page) is
recommended reading.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_4">5.4 Extensions and Backward Compatibility</a></h2>
<p>Although you can specify <code>-I</code> options to make the
preprocessor search the g++-v3/ext and /backward directories,
it is better to refer to files there by their path, as in:
<!-- Careful, the leading spaces in PRE show up directly. -->
</p>
<pre>
#include <ext/hash_map>
</pre>
<p>Extensions to the library have
<a href="../ext/howto.html">their own page</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_5">5.5 [removed]</a></h2>
<p>This question has become moot and has been removed. The stub
is here to preserve numbering (and hence links/bookmarks).
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_6">5.6 Is libstdc++-v3 thread-safe?</a></h2>
<p>When the system's libc is itself thread-safe, a non-generic
implementation of atomicity.h exists for the architecture, and gcc
itself reports a thread model other than single; libstdc++-v3
strives to be thread-safe. The user-code must guard against
concurrent method calls which may access any particular library
object's state. Typically, the application programmer may infer
what object locks must be held based on the objects referenced in
a method call. Without getting into great detail, here is an
example which requires user-level locks:
<pre>
library_class_a shared_object_a;
thread_main () {
library_class_b *object_b = new library_class_b;
shared_object_a.add_b (object_b); // must hold lock for shared_object_a
shared_object_a.mutate (); // must hold lock for shared_object_a
}
// Multiple copies of thread_main() are started in independent threads.</pre>
</p>
<p>Under the assumption that object_a and object_b are never exposed to
another thread, here is an example that should not require any
user-level locks:
<pre>
thread_main () {
library_class_a object_a;
library_class_b *object_b = new library_class_b;
object_a.add_b (object_b);
object_a.mutate ();
} </pre>
</p>
<p>All library objects are safe to use in a multithreaded program as
long as each thread carefully locks out access by any other thread
while it uses any object visible to another thread. In general,
this requirement includes both read and write access to objects;
unless otherwise documented as safe, do not assume that two
threads may access a shared standard library object at the
same time.
</p>
<p>See chapters <a href="../17_intro/howto.html#3">17</a> (library
introduction), <a href="../23_containers/howto.html#3">23</a>
(containers), and <a href="../27_io/howto.html#9">27</a> (I/O) for
more information.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_7">5.7 How do I get a copy of the ISO C++ Standard?</a></h2>
<p>Copies of the full ISO 14882 standard are available on line via the
ISO mirror site for committee members. Non-members, or those who
have not paid for the privilege of sitting on the committee and
sustained their two-meeting commitment for voting rights, may get a
copy of the standard from their respective national standards
organization. In the USA, this national standards organization is
ANSI and their website is right <a href="http://www.ansi.org">here</a>.
(And if you've already registered with them, clicking this link will
take you to directly to the place where you can
<a href="http://webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/product.asp?sku=ISO%2FIEC+14882%2D1998">buy
the standard on-line</a>.
</p>
<p>Who is your country's member body? Visit the
<a href="http://www.iso.ch/">ISO homepage</a> and find out!
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5_8">5.8 What's an ABI and why is it so messy?</a></h2>
<p>"ABI" stands for "Application Binary Interface."
Conventionally, it refers to a great mass of details about how
arguments are arranged on the call stack and/or in registers, and
how various types are arranged and padded in structs. A single CPU
design may suffer multiple ABIs designed by different development
tool vendors who made different choices, or even by the same vendor
for different target applications or compiler versions. In ideal
circumstances the CPU designer presents one ABI and all the OSes and
compilers use it. In practice every ABI omits details that compiler
implementers (consciously or accidentally) must choose for themselves.
</p>
<p>That ABI definition suffices for compilers to generate code so a
program can interact safely with an OS and its lowest-level libraries.
Users usually want an ABI to encompass more detail, allowing libraries
built with different compilers (or different releases of the same
compiler!) to be linked together. For C++, this includes many more
details than for C, and CPU designers (for good reasons elaborated
below) have not stepped up to publish C++ ABIs. The details include
virtual function implementation, struct inheritance layout, name
mangling, and exception handling. Such an ABI has been defined for
GNU C++, and is immediately useful for embedded work relying only on
a "free-standing implementation" that doesn't include (much
of) the standard library. It is a good basis for the work to come.
</p>
<p>A useful C++ ABI must also incorporate many details of the standard
library implementation. For a C ABI, the layouts of a few structs
(such as FILE, stat, jmpbuf, and the like) and a few macros suffice.
For C++, the details include the complete set of names of functions
and types used, the offsets of class members and virtual functions,
and the actual definitions of all inlines. C++ exposes many more
library details to the caller than C does. It makes defining
a complete ABI a much bigger undertaking, and requires not just
documenting library implementation details, but carefully designing
those details so that future bug fixes and optimizations don't
force breaking the ABI.
</p>
<p>There are ways to help isolate library implementation details from the
ABI, but they trade off against speed. Library details used in
inner loops (e.g., getchar) must be exposed and frozen for all
time, but many others may reasonably be kept hidden from user code,
so they may later be changed. Deciding which, and implementing
the decisions, must happen before you can reasonably document a
candidate C++ ABI that encompasses the standard library.
</p>
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