Re: c++ source files in the build...

[Joseph Myers <joseph at codesourcery dot com>]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2016, DJ Delorie wrote:

> Is it worth fixing up all our internal headers and sources to be C++
> compatible?  I.e. as a prelude to future C++ stuff?  In this case, it's
> a utility to be installed alongside libc.so, not something inside
> libc.so itself, but still...

We have achieved the ability for bootstrap of a cross toolchain to be: (a) 
build static-only, C-only GCC (does not require glibc headers to build); 
(b) build glibc with that GCC, the resulting installation having identical 
binaries (modulo debug info) to those you get from a longer alternating 
sequence of GCC and glibc builds; (c) build full GCC with shared libraries 
and C++ support.  Ideally this would be even simpler (no rebuild of 
compilers after glibc is installed, only of libgcc and building other GCC 
libraries for the first time at that point).

Installing a C++ utility with glibc goes against that, as you can't build 
it with the bootstrap compiler.  I think any such utility should go in a 
separate glibc-utils package (or multiple packages), released alongside 
glibc but always built using installed headers and libraries rather than 
using a glibc build tree and internal headers at all.  I think 
memusagestat should move into such a package, and potentially other 
utilities (moving utilities used in the glibc testsuite would be 
problematic, however).

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com