Getting started: configure, build, install

The latest version of this document is always available at http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/install.html.

To the libstdc++-v3 homepage.


Contents

Because libstdc++-v3 is part of GCC, the primary source for installation instructions is the GCC install page. Additional data is given here only where it applies to libstdc++-v3.


Tools you will need beforehand

The list of software needed to build the library is kept with the rest of the compiler, at http://gcc.gnu.org/install/prerequisites.html. The same page also lists the tools you will need if you wish to modify the source.

As of June 19, 2000, libstdc++ attempts to use tricky and space-saving features of the GNU toolchain, enabled with -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -Wl,--gc-sections. To obtain maximum benefit from this, binutils after this date should also be used (bugs were fixed with C++ exception handling related to this change in libstdc++-v3). The version of these tools should be 2.10.90, or later, and you can get snapshots (as well as releases) of binutils here. The configure process will automatically detect and use these features if the underlying support is present.

Finally, a few system-specific requirements:

linux
If gcc 3.1.0 or later on is being used on linux, an attempt will be made to use "C" library functionality necessary for C++ named locale support. For gcc 3.2.1 and later, this means that glibc 2.2.5 or later is required and the "C" library de_DE locale information must be installed.

Note however that the sanity checks involving the de_DE locale are skipped when an explicit --enable-clocale=gnu configure option is used: only the basic checks are carried out, defending against misconfigurations.

If the 'gnu' locale model is being used, the following locales are used and tested in the libstdc++ testsuites. The first column is the name of the locale, the second is the character set it is expected to use.

de_DE               ISO-8859-1
de_DE@euro          ISO-8859-15
en_HK               ISO-8859-1
en_PH               ISO-8859-1
en_US               ISO-8859-1
en_US.ISO-8859-1    ISO-8859-1
en_US.ISO-8859-15   ISO-8859-15
en_US.UTF-8         UTF-8
es_ES               ISO-8859-1
es_MX               ISO-8859-1
fr_FR               ISO-8859-1
fr_FR@euro          ISO-8859-15
is_IS               UTF-8
it_IT               ISO-8859-1
ja_JP.eucjp         EUC-JP
se_NO.UTF-8         UTF-8
ta_IN               UTF-8
zh_TW               BIG5

Failure to have the underlying "C" library locale information installed will mean that C++ named locales for the above regions will not work: because of this, the libstdc++ testsuite will skip the named locale tests. If this isn't an issue, don't worry about it. If named locales are needed, the underlying locale information must be installed. Note that rebuilding libstdc++ after the "C" locales are installed is not necessary.

To install support for locales, do only one of the following:


Configuring

If you have never done this before, you should read the basic GCC Installation Instructions first. Read all of them. Twice.

When building libstdc++-v3 you'll have to configure the entire gccsrcdir directory. The full list of libstdc++-v3 specific configuration options, not dependent on the specific compiler release being used, can be found here.

Consider possibly using --enable-languages=c++ to save time by only building the C++ language parts.

   cd gccbuilddir
   gccsrcdir/configure --prefix=destdir --other-opts...

Using the library

Find the new library at runtime (shared linking only)

If you only built a static library (libstdc++.a), or if you specified static linking, you don't have to worry about this. But if you built a shared library (libstdc++.so) and linked against it, then you will need to find that library when you run the executable.

Methods vary for different platforms and different styles, but the usual ones are printed to the screen during installation. They include:

Use the ldd(1) utility to show which library the system thinks it will get at runtime.

A libstdc++.la file is also installed, for use with Libtool. If you use Libtool to create your executables, these details are taken care of for you.


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