GDB BoF notes - GNU Cauldron 2023

[Tom de Vries]

On 9/27/23 14:41, Pedro Alves wrote:
> - Can we require C++17?
> 
>    Lancelot has patches for this.
> 
>    Looked at / discussed policy established when we migrated to C++11:
>     https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/Internals%20GDB-C-Coding-Standards#When_is_GDB_going_to_start_requiring_C.2B-.2B-NN_.3F
> 
>       "Our general policy is to wait until the oldest compiler that
>        supports C++NN is at least 3 years old."
> 
>    Discussion about whether the bump is problematic for current
>    distros.
> 
>    Looked for first GCC version that claims supports C++17.  In GCC 9
>    release notes: "The C++17 implementation is no longer experimental."
>    GCC 9.1 was released on May 3, 2019.
> 
>    Do we need full C++17, though?  We can use language features even if
>    the standard library implementation doesn't support everything.
> 
>    Were there actual ABI breakages between compiler releases before it
>    was made non-experimental, though?  AI: ask Jonathan Wakely.
> 
>    On whether we have easy availability of a new enough compiler in
>    distros, in practice:
> 
>    - Tom de Vries to double check for SuSE.
> 

I've double-checked, it's not a problem.

I see now that it's mentioned that Lancelot has patches, I missed that 
and submitted an RFC ( 
https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2023-October/202987.html ).

Thanks,
- Tom

>    - Carlos O'Donell confirms that for RHEL we're good, because of GCC
>      Toolset.
> 
>    - Someone should check Debian/Ubuntu and others.
> 
>    - BSDs tend to have easy access to recent Clang.
> 
>    - MinGW toolchains tend to use newer GCCs.
>