(Untitled)

[jademonkey]

gcc seems to uses gcc to compile itself. Now on the surface this doesn't seem that strange but it's not a version of gcc just sitting on your computer, it's using the version of gcc you are compiling to compile itself. I've been toying with it the past week or so and it's becoming quite apparent this is the case. Strange, no

Comments

[grfpopl]

The idea is, if you are compiling gcc, it might be because the compiler you have sucks. So first it builds a simple compiler to work around any bugs in your existing compiler, and then it uses that to build the "real" compiler. Pretty wild. (I think it actually bootstraps in three stages -- so it does that twice!)

Are you in the WDCMA for summer? Try 89.3 FM (WPFW). It's public radio, but not NPR. Sometimes good jazz, sometimes boring talk.

[jademonkey]

Threw me for a loop while trying to modify the source. Took me a while to realize why gcc wasn't compiling right when i was changing very small portions of the code that shouldn't have changed anything until gcc was used to compile something. Makes sense though.

I occasionally turn to 89.3, but most of the time I get the boring talk, and 99% of that time is them begging for money. But it is on my rotation.

[joshyjosh]

Heh, I had the same reaction when I figured out that the code for SVN was kept in an SVN repository.

[gwreddragon]

Reminds me of when I was trying to compile a lisp environment and it said I needed a lisp compiler first...

Hello people, at some point either you have a compiler written in native assembly or you're out of luck. You need something in native code to start the whole process rolling.