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From: rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux
Subject: Re: C compilers for A/UX
Message-ID: <1990Sep10.002711.22219@servalan.uucp>
Date: 10 Sep 90 00:27:11 GMT
References: <3361@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> <3362@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Lines: 31

jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes:

>With all this hub-bub about FSF and GnuC, does anyone really think GnuC
>is all that good?

  Yes. 

>I have the Unisoft Optimizing C Compiler for A/UX (GreenHills), A/UX cc
>and GnuC 1.37.91. Without a doubt, the Unisoft compiler makes tight, fast
>code. cc isn't very fast or tight, but very stable. And it supports shared
>libraries (Unisoft doesn't... see below). But I've had NOTHING but bad luck
>using GnuC (gcc)!! Weird behavior, core dumps, crashes, bombs, etc...

A/UX cc stable???  Well, now that they've *finally* made it so you can up the
table sizes of the compiler from the command line it's at least possible to
compile large files; as it was, you had to use either the GNU C or the DECUS
C preprocessor to compile X11R4, since the include files for X11 had more 
defines than A/UX cpp could withstand.  I still don't trust it for anything
really large and complicated, though.  

  I dunno about weird behavior and core dumps, but I've got all of X11R4,
plus Emacs, GCC, and several other programs all compiled with gcc, and 
haven't had any problems.  I trust you *do* know about compiling with 
-fwritable-strings? GCC by default puts string constants in text space where
they can't be modified, as ANSI C allows.  Alas, broken implementations of
sscanf, like Apple's, try to write to the string they're scanning, which means
that if you're passing a constant string to sscanf, it dies with SIGSEGV unless
you compiled with -fwritable-strings.
--
Richard Todd	rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us
	rmtodd@servalan.uucp