Title: Adoption of gcc 2.95.2 as project compiler Person responsible: Athol Kemball (akemball@nrao.edu) Originator of proposal: Athol Kemball (akemball@nrao.edu) Exploders targeted: aips2-system, aips2-sitemgr Time table: Date of issue: 2000 November 20 Done Comments due: 2000 November 25 Done Revised proposal: 2000 November 27 Done Final comments due: 2000 November 29 Done Decision date: 2000 November 30 Done Statement of goals: To adopt gcc 2.95.2 as the AIPS++ project compiler (currently egcs-1.1.2) Proposed changes: We have been waiting for Rational Purify support for gcc 2.95 since the advent of the compiler in late July, 1999. The most recent Purify release, version 5.2, supports GNU gcc 2.8.1, which dates from March, 1998. No new support has been added for a GNU compiler since Purify 4.4, which added support for gcc 2.8.1. There is no formal support for the egcs compilers, released Dec 1997 through March 1999. AIPS++ debug compilations under egcs 1.1.2 fail under many cases at present for Purify. We have addressed this by slowing our adoption of new GNU project compilers, while waiting for Purify support. In addition, we have relied on a secondary egcs 1.0.3a build, which is sufficiently close to gcc 2.7.2 to work with Purify. There is now an accelerating divergence between the GNU compiler release schedule (gcc 3.0 due late 2000), and GNU support in Purify. It is appropriate at this point to break the linkage between these two decisions as follows: - Adopt gcc 2.95.2 now as the project compiler for better standard compliance and compatibility with current and expected Linux releases we need to support. Note that gcc 2.96 and gcc 2.97 are only development snapshots and will never form a release by GNU. This should preferably be done at the beginning of the current development cycle. - Drop egcs 1.0.3a as the secondary Purify compiler completely, and replace it with a compiler currently supported by Purify, SUN CC (4.0,5.0 depending on experience). See Note 237 for a description of project policies for secondary compilers, which currently include only SGI and egcs 1.0.3a. Expected Impact: - Sites will need to install gcc 2.95.2, if they have not done so already. - gcc 2.95.2 will have to be tested on all consortium development architectures (Linux, Solaris, HP-UX), where this has not been done already. - Evaluation of a SUN CC 4.0 or 5.0 build as a secondary compiler. No guaranteed Purify support during this interim period. Maintenance of this build by a designated person in the project, as was done for ecgs-1.0.3a. Proposed documentation changes: Change to Note 237, and other documents where the project and secondary compilers are listed. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------