GCC Command-Line Options

This part of the documentation is a modified version of the Command-Line Options section of the GCC Manual. Therefore it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

This section describes the options supported by gcc, the driver program of the GNU Compiler Collection, whose C compiler and assembler are used here. This program is called either by tigcc or by the IDE. tigcc simulates some of these options itself, namely '-E', '-S', and '-c', and it also has some additional ones. In the IDE, there is an item in the project settings where you can set the options described here, with some exceptions, including the switches mentioned above.

GCC4TI normally does preprocessing, compilation, assembly and linking all in one step, and finally produces a file which is executable on the calculator. The "overall options" allow you to stop this process at an intermediate stage. For example, the '-c' option says not to run the linker. Then the output consists of object files output by the assembler.

Other options are passed on to one stage of processing. Some options control the preprocessor and others the compiler itself. Yet other options control the assembler and linker; most of these are not documented here, since you rarely need to use any of them. In fact, only those options which may be more or less useful with GCC4TI are mentioned here (although we didn't check whether all of them are really usable in GCC4TI). For more info about standard options that are recognized by the compiler, read the official manual.

We suggest that you use the '-O2' switch in all of your compilations; it increases speed and decreases the program size at the cost of compilation time.

tigcc accepts options and file names as operands. Many options have multi-letter names; therefore multiple single-letter options may not be grouped: '-dr' is very different from '-d -r'.

You can mix options and other arguments. For the most part, the order you use doesn't matter. Order does matter when you use several options of the same kind; for example, if you specify '-L' more than once, the directories are searched in the order specified.

Many options have long names starting with '-f' or with '-W' - for example, '-fforce-mem', '-fstrength-reduce', '-Wformat' and so on. Most of these have both positive and negative forms; the negative form of '-ffoo' would be '-fno-foo'. This manual documents only one of these two forms, whichever one is not the default.

Original author: Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Authors of the modifications: Zeljko Juric, Sebastian Reichelt, and Kevin Kofler.
Published by the TIGCC Team, and now the GCC4TI project.
See the History section for details and copyright information.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License" and "Funding Free Software", the Front-Cover texts being (a) (see below), and with the Back-Cover Texts being (b) (see below). A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

(a) The FSF's Front-Cover Text is:

A GNU Manual

(b) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is:

You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development.

Options Available in the Command Line Compiler

These options apply only to the command line compiler. If you want to use the IDE instead, you do not need to worry about these topics.

tigcc has an important difference to the standard program gcc: tigcc always overwrites assembly or object files. For example, if a file test.c is compiled, the files test.s and test.o will be created and overwritten if necessary, but they will automatically be deleted again if neither '-c' nor '-S' are specified.

Another important difference is that tigcc always looks for libraries in the 'Lib' subfolder of the installation.

-pack varname

Compress the file generated during compilation. varname is the name of the on-calc packed variable. Although varname cannot have an extension, the variable on the calculator will always have the extension ppg. varname cannot be the same as the on-calc name of the program itself. When you use this switch, two files will be created; one with the extension .89y or .9xy, and one .89z or .9xz file.

This option comes from Thomas Nussbaumer's TI-68k Developer Utilities (now built in GCC4TI), where this feature is called "ExePack Technology." You can read about it on the official TI-Chess Team site.

-q

Keep as quiet as possible while assembling and linking. This option is not needed by the compiler because it is always quiet, but the linker and especially the assembler output some information.

-v0

This switch is an addition to the '-v' switch. It tells GCC4TI to output only the commands that are run directly. This was the default in some previous releases.

-g

The '-g' switch in GCC turns on debugging information in the preferred format for the target. In GCC4TI, this is DWARF 2, which can be used with a GDB-enabled TiEmu.

-standalone

Do not link against tigcc.a. All of GCC's internal functions are implemented in this library, as well as all non-TIOS functions. Using one of these will result in an error from the linker.

-ar

Create an archive (a static library) instead of a program. The resulting file will have an .a ending.

-bsr

This option is ignored for compatibility.

In addition to these options, the tigcc program also accepts most of the linker options.

Options Controlling the Kind of Output

Compilation can involve up to four stages: preprocessing, compilation proper, assembly and linking, always in that order. The first three stages apply to an individual source file, and end by producing an object file; linking combines all the object files (those newly compiled, and those specified as input) into an executable file.

For any given input file, the file name suffix determines what kind of compilation is done (some of these apply only to TIGCC/GCC4TI):

file.c

C source code which must be preprocessed.

file.s

GNU Assembler code.

file.S

GNU Assembler code which must be preprocessed.

file.asm

A68k Assembler code.

file.o

COFF object file to be linked using ld.

file.a

Static library (function archive) to be linked using ld.

You can specify the input language explicitly with the '-x' option:

-x language

Specify explicitly the language for the following input files (rather than letting the compiler choose a default based on the file name suffix). This option applies to all following input files until the next '-x' option. Possible values for language are:
c c-header cpp-output c++ c++-cpp-output objective-c objc-cpp-output assembler assembler-with-cpp ada f77 f77-cpp-input ratfor java treelang

-x none

Turn off any specification of a language, so that subsequent files are handled according to their file name suffixes (as they are if '-x' has not been used at all).

-pass-exit-codes

Normally the gcc program will exit with the code of 1 if any phase of the compiler returns a non-success return code. If you specify '-pass-exit-codes', the gcc program will instead return with numerically highest error produced by any phase that returned an error indication.

If you only want some of the stages of compilation, you can use '-x' (or filename suffixes) to tell gcc where to start, and one of the options '-c', '-S', or '-E' to say where gcc is to stop. Note that some combinations (for example, '-x cpp-output -E') instruct gcc to do nothing at all.

-c

Compile or assemble the source files, but do not link. The linking stage simply is not done. The ultimate output is in the form of an object file for each source file.

By default, the object file name for a source file is made by replacing the suffix .c, .i, .s, etc., with .o.

Unrecognized input files, not requiring compilation or assembly, are ignored.

-S

Stop after the stage of compilation proper; do not assemble. The output is in the form of an assembler code file for each non-assembler input file specified.

By default, the assembler file name for a source file is made by replacing the suffix .c, .i, etc., with .s.

Input files that don't require compilation are ignored.

-E

Stop after the preprocessing stage; do not run the compiler proper. The output is in the form of preprocessed source code, which is sent to the standard output.

Input files which don't require preprocessing are ignored.

-o file

Place output in file file. This applies regardless to whatever sort of output is being produced, whether it be an executable file, an object file, an assembler file or preprocessed C code.

Since only one output file can be specified, it does not make sense to use '-o' when compiling more than one input file, unless you are producing an executable file as output.

If '-o' is not specified, the default is to put an executable file in a.out, the object file for source.suffix in source.o, its assembler file in source.s, and all preprocessed C source on standard output.

-v

Print (on standard error output) the commands executed to run the stages of compilation. Also print the version number of the compiler driver program and of the preprocessor and the compiler proper.

-###

Like '-v' except the commands are not executed and all command arguments are quoted. This is useful for shell scripts to capture the driver-generated command lines.

-pipe

Use pipes rather than temporary files for communication between the various stages of compilation. This fails to work on some systems where the assembler is unable to read from a pipe; but the GNU assembler has no trouble.

--help

Print (on the standard output) a description of the command line options understood by gcc. If the '-v' option is also specified then '--help' will also be passed on to the various processes invoked by gcc, so that they can display the command line options they accept. If the '-W' option is also specified then command line options which have no documentation associated with them will also be displayed.

--target-help

Print (on the standard output) a description of target specific command line options for each tool.

--version

Display the version number and copyrights of the invoked GCC.

Options Controlling C Dialect

The following options control the dialect of C that the compiler accepts:

-ansi

Support all ISO C89 programs. This turns off certain features of GCC that are incompatible with ISO C89, such as the asm and typeof keywords, and some predefined macros that identify the type of system you are using. It also enables the undesirable and rarely used ISO trigraph feature, and disables recognition of C++ style // comments as well as the inline keyword.

The alternate keywords __asm__, __extension__, __inline__ and __typeof__ continue to work despite '-ansi'. You would not want to use them in an ISO C program, of course, but it is useful to put them in header files that might be included in compilations done with '-ansi'. Alternate predefined macros such as __unix__ are also available, with or without '-ansi'.

The '-ansi' option does not cause non-ISO programs to be rejected gratuitously. For that, '-pedantic' is required in addition to '-ansi'. See Warning Options.

The macro __STRICT_ANSI__ is predefined when the '-ansi' option is used. Some header files may notice this macro and refrain from declaring certain functions or defining certain macros that the ISO standard doesn't call for; this is to avoid interfering with any programs that might use these names for other things.

Functions which would normally be built in but do not have semantics defined by ISO C (such as alloca) are not built-in functions with '-ansi' is used. See Other built-in functions provided by GCC for details of the functions affected.

Note: At the moment, the GCC4TI library depends heavily on GNU C extensions, so you cannot use the '-ansi' switch in GCC4TI.

-std=standard

Determine the language standard. A value for standard must be provided; provided; possible values are

c89
iso9899:1990

ISO C90 (same as '-ansi').

iso9899:199409

ISO C90 as modified in amendment 1.

c99
c9x
iso9899:1999
iso9899:199x

ISO C99. Note that this standard is not yet fully supported; see http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.3/c99status.html for more information. The names c9x and iso9899:199x are deprecated.

gnu89

Default, ISO C90 plus GNU extensions (including some C99 features).

gnu99
gnu9x

ISO C99 plus GNU extensions. When ISO C99 is fully implemented in GCC, this will become the default. The name gnu9x is deprecated.

Even when this option is not specified, you can still use some of the features of newer standards in so far as they do not conflict with previous C standards. For example, you may use __restrict__ even when '-std=c99' is not specified.

The '-std' options specifying some version of ISO C have the same effects as '-ansi', except that features that were not in ISO C90 but are in the specified version (for example, // comments and the inline keyword in ISO C99) are not disabled.

-aux-info filename

Output to the given filename prototyped declarations for all functions declared and/or defined in a translation unit, including those in header files. This option is silently ignored in any language other than C.

Besides declarations, the file indicates, in comments, the origin of each declaration (source file and line), whether the declaration was implicit, prototyped or unprototyped (I, N for new or O for old, respectively, in the first character after the line number and the colon), and whether it came from a declaration or a definition (C or F, respectively, in the following character). In the case of function definitions, a K&R-style list of arguments followed by their declarations is also provided, inside comments, after the declaration.

-fno-asm

Do not recognize asm, inline or typeof as a keyword, so that code can use these words as identifiers. You can use the keywords __asm__, __inline__ and __typeof__ instead. '-ansi' implies '-fno-asm'.

-fno-builtin
-fno-builtin-function

Don't recognize built-in functions that do not begin with __builtin_ as prefix. See Other built-in functions provided by GCC for details of the functions affected, including those which are not built-in functions when '-ansi' or '-std' options for strict ISO C conformance are used because they do not have an ISO standard meaning.

GCC normally generates special code to handle certain built-in functions more efficiently; for instance, calls to alloca may become single instructions that adjust the stack directly. The resulting code is often both smaller and faster, but since the function calls no longer appear as such, you cannot set a breakpoint on those calls, nor can you change the behavior of the functions by linking with a different library.

With the '-fno-builtin-function' option, only the built-in function function is disabled. function must not begin with __builtin_. If a function is named this is not built-in in this version of GCC, this option is ignored. There is no corresponding '-fbuiltin-function' option; if you wish to enable built-in functions selectively when using '-fno-builtin' or '-ffreestanding', you may define macros such as:

#define abs(n)          __builtin_abs ((n))
#define strcpy(d, s)    __builtin_strcpy ((d), (s))

-fhosted

Assert that compilation takes place in a hosted environment. This implies '-fbuiltin'. A hosted environment is one in which the entire standard library is available, and in which main has a return type of int. Examples are nearly everything except a kernel. This is equivalent to '-fno-freestanding'.

Although TI calculators are not really hosted environments, '-fhosted' is kept as the default.

-ffreestanding

Assert that compilation takes place in a freestanding environment. This implies '-fno-builtin'. A freestanding environment is one in which the standard library may not exist, and program startup may not necessarily be at main. The most obvious example is an OS kernel. This is equivalent to '-fno-hosted'.

-fms-extensions

Accept some non-standard constructs used in Microsoft header files.

-trigraphs

Support ISO C trigraphs. The '-ansi' option (and '-std' options for strict ISO C conformance) implies '-trigraphs'. See Options Controlling the Preprocessor for more information.

-no-integrated-cpp

Performs a compilation in two passes: preprocessing and compiling. This option allows a user supplied "cc1" via the '-B' option. The user supplied compilation step can then add in an additional preprocessing step after normal preprocessing but before compiling. The default is to use the integrated preprocessor.

The semantics of this option will change if "cc1", "cc1plus", and "cc1obj" are merged.

-traditional
-traditional-cpp

Formerly, these options caused GCC to attempt to emulate a pre-standard C compiler. They are now only supported with the '-E' switch. The preprocessor continues to support a pre-standard mode.

-fcond-mismatch

Allow conditional expressions with mismatched types in the second and third arguments. The value of such an expression is void.

-funsigned-char

Let the type char be unsigned, like unsigned char. In GCC4TI, the default is signed char.

Ideally, a portable program should always use signed char or unsigned char when it depends on the signedness of an object. But many programs have been written to use plain char and expect it to be signed, or expect it to be unsigned, depending on the machines they were written for. This option, and its inverse, let you make such a program work with the opposite default.

The type char is always a distinct type from each of signed char or unsigned char, even though its behavior is always just like one of those two.

-fsigned-char

Let the type char be signed, like signed char.

Note that this is equivalent to '-fno-unsigned-char', which is the negative form of '-funsigned-char'. Likewise, the option '-fno-signed-char' is equivalent to '-funsigned-char'.

-fsigned-bitfields
-funsigned-bitfields
-fno-signed-bitfields
-fno-unsigned-bitfields

These options control whether a bit-field is signed or unsigned, when the declaration does not use either signed or unsigned. By default, such a bit-field is signed, because this is consistent: the basic integer types such as int are signed types.

-fwritable-strings

Store string constants in the writable data segment and don't uniquize them. This is for compatibility with old programs which assume they can write into string constants.

Writing into string constants is a very bad idea; "constants" should be constant.

Options to Request or Suppress Warnings

Warnings are diagnostic messages that report constructions which are not inherently erroneous but which are risky or suggest there may have been an error.

You can request many specific warnings with options beginning '-W', for example '-Wimplicit' to request warnings on implicit declarations. Each of these specific warning options also has a negative form beginning '-Wno-' to turn off warnings; for example, '-Wno-implicit'. This manual lists only one of the two forms, whichever is not the default.

The following options control the amount and kinds of warnings produced by GCC.

-fsyntax-only

Check the code for syntax errors, but don't do anything beyond that.

-pedantic

Issue all the warnings demanded by strict ISO C; reject all programs that use forbidden extensions, and some other programs that do not follow ISO C. This option follows the version of the ISO C standard specified by any '-std' option used.

Valid ISO C programs should compile properly with or without this option (though a rare few will require '-ansi' or a '-std' option specifying the required version of ISO C). However, without this option, certain GNU extensions and traditional C features are supported as well. With this option, they are rejected.

'-pedantic' does not cause warning messages for use of the alternate keywords whose names begin and end with __. Pedantic warnings are also disabled in the expression that follows __extension__. However, only system header files should use these escape routes; application programs should avoid them. See Alternate Keywords.

Some users try to use '-pedantic' to check programs for strict ISO C conformance. They soon find that it does not do quite what they want: it finds some non-ISO practices, but not all - only those for which ISO C requires a diagnostic, and some others for which diagnostics have been added.

A feature to report any failure to conform to ISO C might be useful in some instances, but would require considerable additional work and would be quite different from '-pedantic'. The GNU team doesn't have plans to support such a feature in the near future.

Where the standard specified with '-std' represents a GNU extended dialect of C, such as gnu89 or gnu99, there is a corresponding base standard, the version of ISO C on which the GNU extended dialect is based. Warnings from '-pedantic' are given where they are required by the base standard. (It would not make sense for such warnings to be given only for features not in the specified GNU C dialect, since by definition the GNU dialects of C include all features the compiler supports with the given option, and there would be nothing to warn about.)

-pedantic-errors

Like '-pedantic', except that errors are produced rather than warnings.

-w

Inhibit all warning messages.

-Wno-import

Inhibit warning messages about the use of #import.

-Wchar-subscripts

Warn if an array subscript has type char. This is a common cause of error, as programmers often forget that this type is signed on some machines.

-Wcomment

Warn whenever a comment-start sequence /* appears in a /* comment, or whenever a Backslash-Newline appears in a // comment.

-Wformat

Check calls to printf and scanf, etc., to make sure that the arguments supplied have types appropriate to the format string specified, and that the conversions specified in the format string make sense. This includes standard functions, and others specified by format attributes (see format).

Since '-Wformat' also checks for null format arguments for several functions, '-Wformat' also implies '-Wnonnull'.

'-Wformat' is included in '-Wall'. For more control over some aspects of format checking, the options '-Wno-format-extra-args', '-Wno-format-zero-length', '-Wformat-nonliteral', '-Wformat-security', and '-Wformat=2' are available, but are not included in '-Wall'.

-Wno-format-extra-args

If '-Wformat' is specified, do not warn about excess arguments to a printf or scanf format function. The C standard specifies that such arguments are ignored.

-Wno-format-zero-length

If '-Wformat' is specified, do not warn about zero-length formats. The C standard specifies that zero-length formats are allowed.

-Wformat-nonliteral

If '-Wformat' is specified, also warn if the format string is not a string literal and so cannot be checked, unless the format function takes its format arguments as a va_list.

-Wformat-security

If '-Wformat' is specified, also warn about uses of format functions that represent possible security problems. At present, this warns about calls to printf and scanf functions where the format string is not a string literal and there are no format arguments, as in printf (foo);. This may be a security hole if the format string came from untrusted input and contains %n. (This is currently a subset of what '-Wformat-nonliteral' warns about, but in future warnings may be added to '-Wformat-security' that are not included in '-Wformat-nonliteral'.)

-Wformat=2

Enable '-Wformat' plus format checks not included in '-Wformat'. Currently equivalent to '-Wformat -Wformat-nonliteral -Wformat-security'.

-Wnonnull

Enable warning about passing a null pointer for arguments marked as requiring a non-null value by the nonnull function attribute.

'-Wnonnull' is included in '-Wall' and '-Wformat'. It can be disabled with the '-Wno-nonnull' option.

-Wimplicit-int

Warn when a declaration does not specify a type.

-Wimplicit-function-declaration
-Werror-implicit-function-declaration

Give a warning (or error) whenever a function is used before being declared.

-Wimplicit

Same as '-Wimplicit-int -Wimplicit-function-declaration'.

-Wmissing-braces

Warn if an aggregate or union initializer is not fully bracketed. In the following example, the initializer for a is not fully bracketed, but that for b is fully bracketed.

int a[2][2] = { 0, 1, 2, 3 };
int b[2][2] = { { 0, 1 }, { 2, 3 } };

-Wparentheses

Warn if parentheses are omitted in certain contexts, such as when there is an assignment in a context where a truth value is expected, or when operators are nested whose precedence people often get confused about.

Also warn about constructions where there may be confusion to which if statement an else branch belongs. Here is an example of such a case:

{
  if (a)
    if (b)
      foo ();
  else
    bar ();
}

In C, every else branch belongs to the innermost possible if statement, which in this example is if (b). This is often not what the programmer expected, as illustrated in the above example by the indentation the programmer chose. When there is the potential for this confusion, GCC will issue a warning when this flag is specified. To eliminate the warning, add explicit braces around the innermost if statement so there is no way the else could belong to the enclosing if. The resulting code would look like this:

{
  if (a)
    {
      if (b)
        foo ();
      else
        bar ();
    }
}

-Wsequence-point

Warn about code that may have undefined semantics because of violations of sequence point rules in the C standard.

The C standard defines the order in which expressions in a C program are evaluated in terms of sequence points, which represent a partial ordering between the execution of parts of the program: those executed before the sequence point, and those executed after it. These occur after the evaluation of a full expression (one which is not part of a larger expression), after the evaluation of the first operand of a &&, ||, ? : or , (comma) operator, before a function is called (but after the evaluation of its arguments and the expression denoting the called function), and in certain other places. Other than as expressed by the sequence point rules, the order of evaluation of subexpressions of an expression is not specified. All these rules describe only a partial order rather than a total order, since, for example, if two functions are called within one expression with no sequence point between them, the order in which the functions are called is not specified. However, the standards committee have ruled that function calls do not overlap.

It is not specified when between sequence points modifications to the values of objects take effect. Programs whose behavior depends on this have undefined behavior; the C standard specifies that "Between the previous and next sequence point an object shall have its stored value modified at most once by the evaluation of an expression. Furthermore, the prior value shall be read only to determine the value to be stored.". If a program breaks these rules, the results on any particular implementation are entirely unpredictable.

Examples of code with undefined behavior are a = a++;, a[n] = b[n++] and a[i++] = i;. Some more complicated cases are not diagnosed by this option, and it may give an occasional false positive result, but in general it has been found fairly effective at detecting this sort of problem in programs.

The C standard is worded confusingly, therefore there is some debate over the precise meaning of the sequence point rules in subtle cases. Links to discussions of the problem, including proposed formal definitions, may be found on the GCC readings page, at http://gcc.gnu.org/readings.html.

-Wreturn-type

Warn whenever a function is defined with a return-type that defaults to int. Also warn about any return statement with no return-value in a function whose return-type is not void.

-Wswitch

Warn whenever a switch statement has an index of enumeral type and lacks a case for one or more of the named codes of that enumeration. (The presence of a default label prevents this warning.) case labels outside the enumeration range also provoke warnings when this option is used.

-Wswitch-default

Warn whenever a switch statement does not have a default case.

-Wswitch-enum

Warn whenever a switch statement has an index of enumeral type and lacks a case for one or more of the named codes of that enumeration. case labels outside the enumeration range also provoke warnings when this option is used.

-Wtrigraphs

Warn if any trigraphs are encountered that might change the meaning of the program (trigraphs within comments are not warned about). For more information about trigraphs, see Options Controlling the Preprocessor.

-Wunused-function

Warn whenever a static function is declared but not defined or a non\-inline static function is unused.

To suppress this warning, use the unused attribute.

-Wunused-label

Warn whenever a label is declared but not used.

To suppress this warning, use the unused attribute.

-Wunused-parameter

Warn whenever a function parameter is unused aside from its declaration.

To suppress this warning, use the unused attribute.

-Wunused-variable

Warn whenever a local variable or non-constant static variable is unused aside from its declaration

To suppress this warning, use the unused attribute.

-Wunused-value

Warn whenever a statement computes a result that is explicitly not used.

To suppress this warning, cast the expression to void.

-Wunused

All the above '-Wunused' options combined.

In order to get a warning about an unused function parameter, you must either specify '-W -Wunused' or separately specify '-Wunused-parameter'.

-Wuninitialized

Warn if an automatic variable is used without first being initialized or if a variable may be clobbered by a setjmp call (I am not sure whether setjmp problems may be detected in GCC4TI).

These warnings are possible only in optimizing compilation, because they require data flow information that is computed only when optimizing. If you don't specify '-O', you simply won't get these warnings.

These warnings occur only for variables that are candidates for register allocation. Therefore, they do not occur for a variable that is declared volatile, or whose address is taken, or whose size is other than 1, 2, 4 or 8 bytes. Also, they do not occur for structures, unions or arrays, even when they are in registers.

Note that there may be no warning about a variable that is used only to compute a value that itself is never used, because such computations may be deleted by data flow analysis before the warnings are printed.

These warnings are made optional because GCC is not smart enough to see all the reasons why the code might be correct despite appearing to have an error. Here is one example of how this can happen:

{
  int x;
  switch (y)
    {
    case 1: x = 1;
      break;
    case 2: x = 4;
      break;
    case 3: x = 5;
    }
  foo (x);
}

If the value of y is always 1, 2 or 3, then x is always initialized, but GCC doesn't know this. Here is another common case:

{
  int save_y;
  if (change_y) save_y = y, y = new_y;
  ...
  if (change_y) y = save_y;
}

This has no bug because save_y is used only if it is set.

This option also warns when a non-volatile automatic variable might be changed by a call to longjmp. These warnings as well are possible only in optimizing compilation (although I am not sure whether they can be caught at all in GCC4TI).

The compiler sees only the calls to setjmp. It cannot know where longjmp will be called; in fact, an interrupt handler could call it at any point in the code. As a result, you may get a warning even when there is in fact no problem because longjmp cannot in fact be called at the place which would cause a problem.

Some spurious warnings can be avoided if you declare all the functions you use that never return as noreturn.

-Wunknown-pragmas

Warn when a #pragma directive is encountered which is not understood by GCC. If this command line option is used, warnings will even be issued for unknown pragmas in system header files. This is not the case if the warnings were only enabled by the '-Wall' command line option.

-Wstrict-aliasing

This option is only active when '-fstrict-aliasing' is active. It warns about code which might break the strict aliasing rules that the compiler is using for optimization. The warning does not catch all cases, but does attempt to catch the more common pitfalls. It is included in '-Wall'.

-Wall

All of the above '-W' options combined. This enables all the warnings about constructions that some users consider questionable, and that are easy to avoid (or modify to prevent the warning), even in conjunction with macros.

The following '-W...' options are not implied by '-Wall'. Some of them warn about constructions that users generally do not consider questionable, but which occasionally you might wish to check for; others warn about constructions that are necessary or hard to avoid in some cases, and there is no simple way to modify the code to suppress the warning.

-W

Print extra warning messages for these events:

-Wno-div-by-zero

Do not warn about compile-time integer division by zero. Floating point division by zero is not warned about, as it can be a legitimate way of obtaining infinities and NaNs.

-Wsystem-headers

Print warning messages for constructs found in system header files. Warnings from system headers are normally suppressed, on the assumption that they usually do not indicate real problems and would only make the compiler output harder to read. Using this command line option tells GCC to emit warnings from system headers as if they occurred in user code. However, note that using '-Wall' in conjunction with this option will not warn about unknown pragmas in system headers - for that, '-Wunknown-pragmas' must also be used.

Note that the GCC4TI Library header files are not included as system header files.

-Wfloat-equal

Warn if floating point values are used in equality comparisons.

The idea behind this is that sometimes it is convenient (for the programmer) to consider floating-point values as approximations to infinitely precise real numbers. If you are doing this, then you need to compute (by analyzing the code, or in some other way) the maximum or likely maximum error that the computation introduces, and allow for it when performing comparisons (and when producing output, but that's a different problem). In particular, instead of testing for equality, you would check to see whether the two values have ranges that overlap; and this is done with the relational operators, so equality comparisons are probably mistaken.

-Wtraditional

Warn about certain constructs that behave differently in traditional and ISO C. Also warn about ISO C constructs that have no traditional C equivalent, and/or problematic constructs which should be avoided.

-Wundef

Warn if an undefined identifier is evaluated in an #if directive.

-Wendif-labels

Warn whenever an #else or an #endif are followed by text.

-Wshadow

Warn whenever a local variable shadows another local variable, parameter or global variable or whenever a built-in function is shadowed.

-Wlarger-than-len

Warn whenever an object of larger than len bytes is defined.

-Wpointer-arith

Warn about anything that depends on the "size of" a function type or of void. GNU C assigns these types a size of 1, for convenience in calculations with void* pointers and pointers to functions.

-Wbad-function-cast

Warn whenever a function call is cast to a non-matching type. For example, warn if int malloc() is cast to anything *.

-Wcast-qual

Warn whenever a pointer is cast so as to remove a type qualifier from the target type. For example, warn if a const char * is cast to an ordinary char *.

-Wcast-align

Warn whenever a pointer is cast such that the required alignment of the target is increased. For example, warn if a char * is cast to an int * on machines where integers can only be accessed at two- or four-byte boundaries.

-Wwrite-strings

When compiling C, give string constants the type const char[length] so that copying the address of one into a non-const char * pointer will get a warning; when compiling C++, warn about the deprecated conversion from string constants to char *. These warnings will help you find at compile time code that can try to write into a string constant, but only if you have been very careful about using const in declarations and prototypes. Otherwise, it will just be a nuisance; this is why we did not make '-Wall' request these warnings.

-Wconversion

Warn if a prototype causes a type conversion that is different from what would happen to the same argument in the absence of a prototype. This includes conversions of fixed point to floating and vice versa, and conversions changing the width or signedness of a fixed point argument except when the same as the default promotion.

Also, warn if a negative integer constant expression is implicitly converted to an unsigned type. For example, warn about the assignment x = -1 if x is unsigned. But do not warn about explicit casts like (unsigned) -1.

-Wsign-compare

Warn when a comparison between signed and unsigned values could produce an incorrect result when the signed value is converted to unsigned. This warning is enabled by '-W', and by '-Wall' in C++ only.

-Waggregate-return

Warn if any functions that return structures or unions are defined or called.

-Wstrict-prototypes

Warn if a function is declared or defined without specifying the argument types. (An old-style function definition is permitted without a warning if preceded by a declaration which specifies the argument types.)

-Wmissing-prototypes

Warn if a global function is defined without a previous prototype declaration. This warning is issued even if the definition itself provides a prototype. The aim is to detect global functions that fail to be declared in header files.

-Wmissing-declarations (C only)

Warn if a global function is defined without a previous declaration. Do so even if the definition itself provides a prototype. Use this option to detect global functions that are not declared in header files.

-Wmissing-noreturn

Warn about functions which might be candidates for attribute noreturn. Note these are only possible candidates, not absolute ones. Care should be taken to manually verify functions actually do not ever return before adding the noreturn attribute, otherwise subtle code generation bugs could be introduced.

-Wmissing-format-attribute

If '-Wformat' is enabled, also warn about functions which might be candidates for format attributes. Note these are only possible candidates, not absolute ones. GCC will guess that format attributes might be appropriate for any function that calls a function like vprintf or vscanf, but this might not always be the case, and some functions for which format attributes are appropriate may not be detected. This option has no effect unless '-Wformat' is enabled (possibly by '-Wall').

-Wno-multichar

Do not warn if a multicharacter constant ('FOOF') is used. Usually they indicate a typo in the user's code, as they have implementation-defined values, and should not be used in portable code.

-Wno-deprecated-declarations

Do not warn about uses of functions, variables, and types marked as deprecated by using the deprecated attribute.

-Wpacked

Warn if a structure is given the packed attribute, but the packed attribute has no effect on the layout or size of the structure. Such structures may be mis-aligned for little benefit. For instance, in this code, the variable f.x in struct bar will be misaligned even though struct bar does not itself have the packed attribute:

struct foo {
  int x;
  char a, b, c, d;
} __attribute__((packed));
struct bar {
  char z;
  struct foo f;
};

-Wpadded

Warn if padding is included in a structure, either to align an element of the structure or to align the whole structure. Sometimes when this happens it is possible to rearrange the fields of the structure to reduce the padding and so make the structure smaller.

-Wredundant-decls

Warn if anything is declared more than once in the same scope, even in cases where multiple declaration is valid and changes nothing.

-Wnested-externs

Warn if an extern declaration is encountered within a function.

-Wunreachable-code

Warn if the compiler detects that code will never be executed.

This option is intended to warn when the compiler detects that at least a whole line of source code will never be executed, because some condition is never satisfied or because it is after a procedure that never returns.

It is possible for this option to produce a warning even though there are circumstances under which part of the affected line can be executed, so care should be taken when removing apparently-unreachable code.

For instance, when a function is inlined, a warning may mean that the line is unreachable in only one inlined copy of the function.

This option is not made part of '-Wall' because in a debugging version of a program there is often substantial code which checks correct functioning of the program and is, hopefully, unreachable because the program does work. Another common use of unreachable code is to provide behavior which is selectable at compile-time.

-Winline

Warn if a function can not be inlined and it was declared as inline. Even with this option, the compiler will not warn about failures to inline functions declared in system headers.

The compiler uses a variety of heuristics to determine whether or not to inline a function. For example, the compiler takes into account the size of the function being inlined and the the amount of inlining that has already been done in the current function. Therefore, seemingly insignificant changes in the source program can cause the warnings produced by '-Winline' to appear or disappear.

-Wlong-long

Warn if long long type is used. This is default. To inhibit the warning messages, use '-Wno-long-long'. Flags '-Wlong-long' and '-Wno-long-long' are taken into account only when '-pedantic' flag is used.

-Wdisabled-optimization

Warn if a requested optimization pass is disabled. This warning does not generally indicate that there is anything wrong with your code; it merely indicates that GCC's optimizers were unable to handle the code effectively. Often, the problem is that your code is too big or too complex; GCC will refuse to optimize programs when the optimization itself is likely to take inordinate amounts of time.

-Werror

Make all warnings into errors.

Options for Debugging Your Program

GCC has various special options that are used for debugging either your program or GCC. However, this manual is not meant to explain anything about the internals of GCC, so you will have to go to the official version of this page on the internet if you want to debug GCC itself.

In order to debug GCC4TI C programs at a source level, you need a GDB-enabled version of the TiEmu emulator.

-g

Produce debugging information in the operating system's native format (stabs is the default for the MC68000). GDB can work with this debugging information. Note that the tigcc frontend defaults to DWARF 2 debugging information instead, see Options Available in the Command Line Compiler.

Unlike most other C compilers, GCC allows you to use '-g' with '-O'. The shortcuts taken by optimized code may occasionally produce surprising results: some variables you declared may not exist at all; flow of control may briefly move where you did not expect it; some statements may not be executed because they compute constant results or their values were already at hand; some statements may execute in different places because they were moved out of loops.

Nevertheless it proves possible to debug optimized output. This makes it reasonable to use the optimizer for programs that might have bugs.

The following options are useful when GCC is generated with the capability for more than one debugging format.

-ggdb

Produce debugging information for use by GDB. This means to use the most expressive format available, including GDB extensions if at all possible.

-gstabs

Produce debugging information in stabs format.

-gstabs+

Produce debugging information in stabs format, using GNU extensions understood only by the GNU debugger (GDB).

-gcoff

Produce debugging information in COFF format.

-glevel
-ggdblevel
-gstabslevel
-gcofflevel

Request debugging information and also use level to specify how much information. The default level is 2.

Level 1 produces minimal information, enough for making backtraces in parts of the program that you don't plan to debug. This includes descriptions of functions and external variables, but no information about local variables and no line numbers.

Level 3 includes extra information, such as all the macro definitions present in the program. Some debuggers support macro expansion when you use '-g3'.

-p

Generate extra code to write profile information suitable for the analysis program prof. You must use this option when compiling the source files you want data about, and you must also use it when linking. This option is probably useless in GCC4TI.

-pg

Generate extra code to write profile information suitable for the analysis program gprof. You must use this option when compiling the source files you want data about, and you must also use it when linking. This option is probably useless in GCC4TI.

-Q

Makes the compiler print out each function name as it is compiled, and print some statistics about each pass when it finishes.

-save-temps

Store the usual "temporary" intermediate files permanently; place them in the current directory and name them based on the source file. Thus, compiling foo.c with '-c -save-temps' would produce files foo.i and foo.s, as well as foo.o. This creates a preprocessed foo.i output file even though the compiler now normally uses an integrated preprocessor.

Options That Control Optimization

These options control various sorts of optimizations.

Without any optimization option, the compiler's goal is to reduce the cost of compilation and to make debugging produce the expected results. Statements are independent: if you stop the program with a breakpoint between statements, you can then assign a new value to any variable or change the program counter to any other statement in the function and get exactly the results you would expect from the source code.

Turning on optimization flags makes the compiler attempt to improve the performance and/or code size at the expense of compilation time and possibly the ability to debug the program.

Not all optimizations are controlled directly by a flag. Only optimizations that have a flag are listed.

-O
-O1

Optimize. Optimizing compilation takes somewhat more time, and a lot more memory for a large function.

With '-O', the compiler tries to reduce code size and execution time, without performing any optimizations that take a great deal of compilation time.

'-O' turns on the following optimization flags: -fdefer-pop -fmerge-constants -fthread-jumps -floop-optimize -fcrossjumping -fif-conversion -fif-conversion2 -fdelayed-branch -fguess-branch-probability -fcprop-registers

'-O' also turns on '-fomit-frame-pointer' on machines where doing so does not interfere with debugging.

-O2

Optimize even more. GCC performs nearly all supported optimizations that do not involve a space-speed tradeoff. The compiler does not perform loop unrolling or function inlining when you specify '-O2'. As compared to '-O', this option increases both compilation time and the performance of the generated code.

'-O2' turns on all optimization flags specified by '-O'. It also turns on the following optimization flags:
-fforce-mem -foptimize-sibling-calls -fstrength-reduce -fcse-follow-jumps -fcse-skip-blocks -frerun-cse-after-loop -frerun-loop-opt -fgcse -fgcse-lm -fgcse-sm -fdelete-null-pointer-checks -fexpensive-optimizations -fregmove -fschedule-insns -fschedule-insns2 -fsched-interblock -fsched-spec -fcaller-saves -fpeephole2 -freorder-blocks -freorder-functions -fstrict-aliasing -falign-functions -falign-jumps -falign-loops -falign-labels

Please note the warning under '-fgcse' about invoking '-O2' on programs that use computed gotos.

-O3

Optimize yet more. '-O3' turns on all optimizations specified by '-O2' and also turns on the '-finline-functions' and '-frename-registers' options.

-O0

Do not optimize. This is the default.

-Os

Optimize for size. '-Os' enables all '-O2' optimizations that do not typically increase code size. It also performs further optimizations designed to reduce code size.

'-Os' disables the following optimization flags: -falign-functions -falign-jumps -falign-loops -falign-labels -freorder-blocks -fprefetch-loop-arrays

If you use multiple '-O' options, with or without level numbers, the last such option is the one that is effective.

Options of the form '-fflag' specify machine-independent flags. Most flags have both positive and negative forms; the negative form of '-ffoo' would be '-fno-foo'. In the table below, only one of the forms is listed: the one you typically will use. You can figure out the other form by either removing 'no-' or adding it.

The following options control specific optimizations. They are either activated by '-O' options or are related to ones that are. You can use the following flags in the rare cases when "fine-tuning" of optimizations to be performed is desired.

-fno-defer-pop

Always pop the arguments to each function call as soon as that function returns. For machines which must pop arguments after a function call, the compiler normally lets arguments accumulate on the stack for several function calls and pops them all at once.

Disabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fforce-mem

Force memory operands to be copied into registers before doing arithmetic on them. This produces better code by making all memory references potential common subexpressions. When they are not common subexpressions, instruction combination should eliminate the separate register-load.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fforce-addr

Force memory address constants to be copied into registers before doing arithmetic on them. This may produce better code just as '-fforce-mem' may.

-fomit-frame-pointer

Don't keep the frame pointer in a register for functions that don't need one. This avoids the instructions to save, set up and restore frame pointers; it also makes an extra register available in many functions. It also makes debugging impossible on some machines (not on GCC4TI though, thanks to unwinding tables).

This option now works with floating point arithmetic.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-foptimize-sibling-calls

Optimize sibling and tail recursive calls.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fno-inline

Don't pay attention to the inline keyword. Normally this option is used to keep the compiler from expanding any functions inline. Note that if you are not optimizing, no functions can be expanded inline.

-finline-functions

Integrate all simple functions into their callers. The compiler heuristically decides which functions are simple enough to be worth integrating in this way.

If all calls to a given function are integrated, and the function is declared static, then the function is normally not output as assembler code in its own right.

Enabled at level '-O3'.

-finline-limit=n

By default, gcc limits the size of functions that can be inlined. This flag allows the control of this limit for functions that are explicitly marked as inline (i.e., marked with the inline keyword). n is the size of functions that can be inlined in number of pseudo instructions (not counting parameter handling). The default value of n is 600. Increasing this value can result in more inlined code at the cost of compilation time and memory consumption. Decreasing usually makes the compilation faster and less code will be inlined (which presumably means slower programs). This option is particularly useful for programs that use inlining heavily.

Inlining is actually controlled by a number of parameters, which may be specified individually by using '--param name=value'. The '-finline-limit=n' option sets some of these parameters as follows:

max-inline-insns

is set to n.

max-inline-insns-single

is set to n/2.

max-inline-insns-auto

is set to n/2.

min-inline-insns

is set to 130 or n/4, whichever is smaller.

max-inline-insns-rtl

is set to n.

Using '-finline-limit=600' thus results in the default settings for these parameters. See below for a documentation of the individual parameters controlling inlining.

Note: pseudo instruction represents, in this particular context, an abstract measurement of function's size. In no way, it represents a count of assembly instructions and as such its exact meaning might change from one release to an another.

-fkeep-inline-functions

Even if all calls to a given function are integrated, and the function is declared static, nevertheless output a separate run-time callable version of the function. This switch does not affect extern inline functions.

-fkeep-static-consts

Emit variables declared static const when optimization isn't turned on, even if the variables aren't referenced.

GCC enables this option by default. If you want to force the compiler to check if the variable was referenced, regardless of whether or not optimization is turned on, use the '-fno-keep-static-consts' option.

-fmerge-constants

Attempt to merge identical constants (string constants and floating point constants) across compilation units.

This option is the default for optimized compilation if the assembler and linker support it. Use '-fno-merge-constants' to inhibit this behavior.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fmerge-all-constants

Attempt to merge identical constants and identical variables.

This option implies '-fmerge-constants'. In addition to '-fmerge-constants' this considers e.g. even constant initialized arrays or initialized constant variables with integral or floating point types. C requires each non-automatic variable to have a distinct location, so using this option will result in non-conforming behavior.

-fno-branch-count-reg

Do not use "decrement and branch" instructions on a count register, but instead generate a sequence of instructions that decrement a register, compare it against zero, then branch based upon the result. This option is only meaningful on architectures that support such instructions, which include x86, PowerPC, IA-64 and S/390.

The default is '-fbranch-count-reg', enabled when '-fstrength-reduce' is enabled.

-fno-function-cse

Do not put function addresses in registers; make each instruction that calls a constant function contain the function's address explicitly.

This option results in less efficient code, but some strange hacks that alter the assembler output may be confused by the optimizations performed when this option is not used.

The default is '-ffunction-cse'

-fno-zero-initialized-in-bss

If the target supports a BSS section (which is always the case for GCC4TI now), GCC by default puts variables that are initialized to zero into BSS. This can save space in the resulting code.

This option turns off this behavior because some programs explicitly rely on variables going to the data section. E.g., so that the resulting executable can find the beginning of that section and/or make assumptions based on that.

The default is '-fzero-initialized-in-bss'.

-fstrength-reduce

Perform the optimizations of loop strength reduction and elimination of iteration variables.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fthread-jumps

Perform optimizations where we check to see if a jump branches to a location where another comparison subsumed by the first is found. If so, the first branch is redirected to either the destination of the second branch or a point immediately following it, depending on whether the condition is known to be true or false.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fcse-follow-jumps

In common subexpression elimination, scan through jump instructions when the target of the jump is not reached by any other path. For example, when CSE encounters an if statement with an else clause, CSE will follow the jump when the condition tested is false.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fcse-skip-blocks

This is similar to '-fcse-follow-jumps', but causes CSE to follow jumps which conditionally skip over blocks. When CSE encounters a simple if statement with no else clause, '-fcse-skip-blocks' causes CSE to follow the jump around the body of the if.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-frerun-cse-after-loop

Re-run common subexpression elimination after loop optimizations have been performed.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-frerun-loop-opt

Run the loop optimizer twice.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fgcse

Perform a global common subexpression elimination pass. This pass also performs global constant and copy propagation.

Note: When compiling a program using computed gotos, a GCC extension, you may get better runtime performance if you disable the global common subexpression elimination pass by adding '-fno-gcse' to the command line.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fgcse-lm

When '-fgcse-lm' is enabled, global common subexpression elimination will attempt to move loads which are only killed by stores into themselves. This allows a loop containing a load/store sequence to be changed to a load outside the loop, and a copy/store within the loop.

Enabled by default when gcse is enabled.

-fgcse-sm

When '-fgcse-sm' is enabled, A store motion pass is run after global common subexpression elimination. This pass will attempt to move stores out of loops. When used in conjunction with '-fgcse-lm', loops containing a load/store sequence can be changed to a load before the loop and a store after the loop.

Enabled by default when gcse is enabled.

-floop-optimize

Perform loop optimizations: move constant expressions out of loops, simplify exit test conditions and optionally do strength-reduction and loop unrolling as well.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fcrossjumping

Perform cross-jumping transformation. This transformation unifies equivalent code and save code size. The resulting code may or may not perform better than without cross-jumping.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fif-conversion

Attempt to transform conditional jumps into branch-less equivalents. This include use of conditional moves, min, max, set flags and abs instructions, and some tricks doable by standard arithmetics. The use of conditional execution on chips where it is available is controlled by if-conversion2.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fif-conversion2

Use conditional execution (where available) to transform conditional jumps into branch-less equivalents.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fdelete-null-pointer-checks

Use global dataflow analysis to identify and eliminate useless checks for null pointers. The compiler assumes that dereferencing a null pointer would have halted the program. If a pointer is checked after it has already been dereferenced, it cannot be null.

In some environments, this assumption is not true, and programs can safely dereference null pointers. Use '-fno-delete-null-pointer-checks' to disable this optimization for programs which depend on that behavior.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fexpensive-optimizations

Perform a number of minor optimizations that are relatively expensive.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-foptimize-register-move
-fregmove

Attempt to reassign register numbers in move instructions and as operands of other simple instructions in order to maximize the amount of register tying. This is especially helpful on machines with two-operand instructions.

Note '-fregmove' and '-foptimize-register-move' are the same optimization.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fdelayed-branch

If supported for the target machine, attempt to reorder instructions to exploit instruction slots available after delayed branch instructions.

Enabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fschedule-insns

If supported for the target machine, attempt to reorder instructions to eliminate execution stalls due to required data being unavailable. This helps machines that have slow floating point or memory load instructions by allowing other instructions to be issued until the result of the load or floating point instruction is required.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fschedule-insns2

Similar to '-fschedule-insns', but requests an additional pass of instruction scheduling after register allocation has been done. This is especially useful on machines with a relatively small number of registers and where memory load instructions take more than one cycle.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fno-sched-interblock

Don't schedule instructions across basic blocks. This is normally enabled by default when scheduling before register allocation, i.e. with '-fschedule-insns' or at '-O2' or higher.

-fno-sched-spec

Don't allow speculative motion of non-load instructions. This is normally enabled by default when scheduling before register allocation, i.e. with '-fschedule-insns' or at '-O2' or higher.

-fsched-spec-load

Allow speculative motion of some load instructions. This only makes sense when scheduling before register allocation, i.e. with '-fschedule-insns' or at '-O2' or higher.

-fsched-spec-load-dangerous

Allow speculative motion of more load instructions. This only makes sense when scheduling before register allocation, i.e. with '-fschedule-insns' or at '-O2' or higher.

-fcaller-saves

Enable values to be allocated in registers that will be clobbered by function calls, by emitting extra instructions to save and restore the registers around such calls. Such allocation is done only when it seems to result in better code than would otherwise be produced.

This option is always enabled by default on certain machines, usually those which have no call-preserved registers to use instead.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fmove-all-movables

Forces all invariant computations in loops to be moved outside the loop.

-freduce-all-givs

Forces all general-induction variables in loops to be strength-reduced.

These options may generate better or worse code; results are highly dependent on the structure of loops within the source code.

These two options are intended to be removed someday, once they have helped determine the efficacy of various approaches to improving loop optimizations.

-fno-peephole
-fno-peephole2

Disable any machine-specific peephole optimizations. The difference between '-fno-peephole' and '-fno-peephole2' is in how they are implemented in the compiler; some targets use one, some use the other, a few use both.

'-fpeephole' is enabled by default. '-fpeephole2' enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fbranch-probabilities
-fno-guess-branch-probability

Do not guess branch probabilities using a randomized model.

Sometimes gcc will opt to use a randomized model to guess branch probabilities, when none are available from either profiling feedback ('-fprofile-arcs') or __builtin_expect. This means that different runs of the compiler on the same program may produce different object code.

In a hard real-time system, people don't want different runs of the compiler to produce code that has different behavior; minimizing non-determinism is of paramount importance. This switch allows users to reduce non-determinism, possibly at the expense of inferior optimization.

The default is '-fguess-branch-probability' at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-freorder-blocks

Reorder basic blocks in the compiled function in order to reduce number of taken branches and improve code locality.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3'.

-freorder-functions

Reorder basic blocks in the compiled function in order to reduce number of taken branches and improve code locality. This is implemented by using special subsections text.hot for most frequently executed functions and text.unlikely for unlikely executed functions. Reordering is done by the linker so object file format must support named sections and linker must place them in a reasonable way.

Also profile feedback must be available in to make this option effective. See '-fprofile-arcs' for details.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-fstrict-aliasing

Allows the compiler to assume the strictest aliasing rules applicable to the language being compiled. For C, this activates optimizations based on the type of expressions. In particular, an object of one type is assumed never to reside at the same address as an object of a different type, unless the types are almost the same. For example, an unsigned int can alias an int, but not a void* or a double. A character type may alias any other type.

Pay special attention to code like this:

union a_union {
  int i;
  double d;
};

int f() {
  a_union t;
  t.d = 3.0;
  return t.i;
}

The practice of reading from a different union member than the one most recently written to (called "type-punning") is common. Even with '-fstrict-aliasing', type-punning is allowed, provided the memory is accessed through the union type. So, the code above will work as expected. However, this code might not:

int f() {
  a_union t;
  int* ip;
  t.d = 3.0;
  ip = &t.i;
  return *ip;
}

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

-falign-functions
-falign-functions=n

Align the start of functions to the next power-of-two greater than n, skipping up to n bytes. For instance, '-falign-functions=32' aligns functions to the next 32-byte boundary, but '-falign-functions=24' would align to the next 32-byte boundary only if this can be done by skipping 23 bytes or less.

'-fno-align-functions' and '-falign-functions=1' are equivalent and mean that functions will not be aligned.

Some assemblers only support this flag when n is a power of two; in that case, it is rounded up.

If n is not specified, use a machine-dependent default.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3'.

-falign-labels
-falign-labels=n

Align all branch targets to a power-of-two boundary, skipping up to n bytes like '-falign-functions'. This option can easily make code slower, because it must insert dummy operations for when the branch target is reached in the usual flow of the code.

If '-falign-loops' or '-falign-jumps' are applicable and are greater than this value, then their values are used instead.

If n is not specified, use a machine-dependent default which is very likely to be 1, meaning no alignment.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3'.

-falign-loops
-falign-loops=n

Align loops to a power-of-two boundary, skipping up to n bytes like '-falign-functions'. The hope is that the loop will be executed many times, which will make up for any execution of the dummy operations.

If n is not specified, use a machine-dependent default.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3'.

-falign-jumps
-falign-jumps=n

Align branch targets to a power-of-two boundary, for branch targets where the targets can only be reached by jumping, skipping up to n bytes like '-falign-functions'. In this case, no dummy operations need be executed.

If n is not specified, use a machine-dependent default.

Enabled at levels '-O2', '-O3'.

-frename-registers

Attempt to avoid false dependencies in scheduled code by making use of registers left over after register allocation. This optimization will most benefit processors with lots of registers. It can, however, make debugging impossible, since variables will no longer stay in a "home register".

Enabled at levels '-O3'.

-fno-cprop-registers

After register allocation and post-register allocation instruction splitting, we perform a copy-propagation pass to try to reduce scheduling dependencies and occasionally eliminate the copy.

Disabled at levels '-O', '-O2', '-O3', '-Os'.

The following options control compiler behavior regarding floating point arithmetic. These options trade off between speed and correctness. All must be specifically enabled.

-ffloat-store

Do not store floating point variables in registers, and inhibit other options that might change whether a floating point value is taken from a register or memory.

This option prevents undesirable excess precision on machines such as the 68000 where the floating registers (of the 68881) keep more precision than a double is supposed to have. Similarly for the x86 architecture. For most programs, the excess precision does only good, but a few programs rely on the precise definition of IEEE floating point. Use '-ffloat-store' for such programs, after modifying them to store all pertinent intermediate computations into variables.

This option is probably useless in GCC4TI, except as a workaround for floating point arithmetic errors.

-ffast-math

Sets '-fno-math-errno', '-funsafe-math-optimizations', '-fno-trapping-math', '-ffinite-math-only' and '-fno-signaling-nans'.

This option causes the preprocessor macro __FAST_MATH__ to be defined.

This option should never be turned on by any '-O' option since it can result in incorrect output for programs which depend on an exact implementation of IEEE or ISO rules/specifications for math functions.

This option is probably useless in GCC4TI.

-fno-math-errno

Do not set ERRNO after calling math functions that are executed with a single instruction, e.g., sqrt. A program that relies on IEEE exceptions for math error handling may want to use this flag for speed while maintaining IEEE arithmetic compatibility.

This option should never be turned on by any '-O' option since it can result in incorrect output for programs which depend on an exact implementation of IEEE or ISO rules/specifications for math functions.

This option is probably useless in GCC4TI.

The default is '-fmath-errno'.

-funsafe-math-optimizations

Allow optimizations for floating-point arithmetic that (a) assume that arguments and results are valid and (b) may violate IEEE or ANSI standards. When used at link-time, it may include libraries or startup files that change the default FPU control word or other similar optimizations.

This option should never be turned on by any '-O' option since it can result in incorrect output for programs which depend on an exact implementation of IEEE or ISO rules/specifications for math functions.

This option is probably useless in GCC4TI.

The default is '-fno-unsafe-math-optimizations'.

-ffinite-math-only

Allow optimizations for floating-point arithmetic that assume that arguments and results are not NaNs or +-Infs.

This option should never be turned on by any '-O' option since it can result in incorrect output for programs which depend on an exact implementation of IEEE or ISO rules/specifications.

The default is '-fno-finite-math-only'.

-fno-trapping-math

Compile code assuming that floating-point operations cannot generate user-visible traps. These traps include division by zero, overflow, underflow, inexact result and invalid operation. This option implies '-fno-signaling-nans'. Setting this option may allow faster code if one relies on "non-stop" IEEE arithmetic, for example.

This option should never be turned on by any '-O' option since it can result in incorrect output for programs which depend on an exact implementation of IEEE or ISO rules/specifications for math functions.

This option is probably useless in GCC4TI.

The default is '-ftrapping-math'.

-fsignaling-nans

Compile code assuming that IEEE signaling NaNs may generate user-visible traps during floating-point operations. Setting this option disables optimizations that may change the number of exceptions visible with signaling NaNs. This option implies '-ftrapping-math'.

This option causes the preprocessor macro __SUPPORT_SNAN__ to be defined.

The default is '-fno-signaling-nans'.

This option is experimental and does not currently guarantee to disable all GCC optimizations that affect signaling NaN behavior.

-fsingle-precision-constant

Treat floating point constant as single precision constant instead of implicitly converting it to double precision constant.

The following options control optimizations that may improve performance, but are not enabled by any '-O' options. This section includes experimental options that may produce broken code.

-fbranch-probabilities

After running a program compiled with '-fprofile-arcs' (see Options for Debugging Your Program or GCC), you can compile it a second time using '-fbranch-probabilities', to improve optimizations based on the number of times each branch was taken. When the program compiled with '-fprofile-arcs' exits, it saves arc execution counts to a file called sourcename.da for each source file. The information in this data file is very dependent on the structure of the generated code, so you must use the same source code and the same optimization options for both compilations.

With '-fbranch-probabilities', GCC puts a REG_BR_PROB note on each JUMP_INSN and CALL_INSN. These can be used to improve optimization. Currently, they are only used in one place: in reorg.c, instead of guessing which path a branch is mostly to take, the REG_BR_PROB values are used to exactly determine which path is taken more often.

-fnew-ra

Use a graph coloring register allocator. Currently this option is meant for testing, so we are interested to hear about miscompilations with '-fnew-ra'.

-ftracer

Perform tail duplication to enlarge superblock size. This transformation simplifies the control flow of the function allowing other optimizations to do better job.

-funroll-loops

Unroll loops whose number of iterations can be determined at compile time or upon entry to the loop. '-funroll-loops' implies both '-fstrength-reduce' and '-frerun-cse-after-loop'. This option makes code larger, and may or may not make it run faster.

-funroll-all-loops

Unroll all loops, even if their number of iterations is uncertain when the loop is entered. This usually makes programs run more slowly. '-funroll-all-loops' implies the same options as '-funroll-loops',

-fprefetch-loop-arrays

If supported by the target machine, generate instructions to prefetch memory to improve the performance of loops that access large arrays.

Disabled at level '-Os'.

-ffunction-sections
-fdata-sections

Place each function or data item into its own section in the output file if the target supports arbitrary sections. The name of the function or the name of the data item determines the section's name in the output file.

Use these options on systems where the linker can perform optimizations to improve locality of reference in the instruction space. Most systems using the ELF object format and SPARC processors running Solaris 2 have linkers with such optimizations. AIX may have these optimizations in the future.

Only use these options when there are significant benefits from doing so. When you specify these options, the assembler and linker will create larger object and executable files and will also be slower. You will not be able to use gprof on all systems if you specify this option and you may have problems with debugging if you specify both this option and '-g'.

-fssa

Perform optimizations in static single assignment form. Each function's flow graph is translated into SSA form, optimizations are performed, and the flow graph is translated back from SSA form. Users should not specify this option, since it is not yet ready for production use.

-fssa-ccp

Perform Sparse Conditional Constant Propagation in SSA form. Requires '-fssa'. Like '-fssa', this is an experimental feature.

-fssa-dce

Perform aggressive dead-code elimination in SSA form. Requires '-fssa'. Like '-fssa', this is an experimental feature.

--param name=value

In some places, GCC uses various constants to control the amount of optimization that is done. For example, GCC will not inline functions that contain more that a certain number of instructions. You can control some of these constants on the command-line using the '--param' option.

In each case, the value is an integer. The allowable choices for name are given in the following table:

max-crossjump-edges

The maximum number of incoming edges to consider for crossjumping. The algorithm used by '-fcrossjumping' is O(N^2) in the number of edges incoming to each block. Increasing values mean more aggressive optimization, making the compile time increase with probably small improvement in executable size.

max-delay-slot-insn-search

The maximum number of instructions to consider when looking for an instruction to fill a delay slot. If more than this arbitrary number of instructions is searched, the time savings from filling the delay slot will be minimal so stop searching. Increasing values mean more aggressive optimization, making the compile time increase with probably small improvement in executable run time.

max-delay-slot-live-search

When trying to fill delay slots, the maximum number of instructions to consider when searching for a block with valid live register information. Increasing this arbitrarily chosen value means more aggressive optimization, increasing the compile time. This parameter should be removed when the delay slot code is rewritten to maintain the control-flow graph.

max-gcse-memory

The approximate maximum amount of memory that will be allocated in order to perform the global common subexpression elimination optimization. If more memory than specified is required, the optimization will not be done.

max-gcse-passes

The maximum number of passes of GCSE to run.

max-pending-list-length

The maximum number of pending dependencies scheduling will allow before flushing the current state and starting over. Large functions with few branches or calls can create excessively large lists which needlessly consume memory and resources.

max-inline-insns-single

Several parameters control the tree inliner used in gcc. This number sets the maximum number of instructions (counted in gcc's internal representation) in a single function that the tree inliner will consider for inlining. This only affects functions declared inline. The default value is 300.

max-inline-insns-auto

When you use '-finline-functions' (included in '-O3'), a lot of functions that would otherwise not be considered for inlining by the compiler will be investigated. To those functions, a different (more restrictive) limit compared to functions declared inline can be applied. The default value is 300.

max-inline-insns

The tree inliner does decrease the allowable size for single functions to be inlined after we already inlined the number of instructions given here by repeated inlining. This number should be a factor of two or more larger than the single function limit. Higher numbers result in better runtime performance, but incur higher compile-time resource (CPU time, memory) requirements and result in larger binaries. Very high values are not advisable, as too large binaries may adversely affect runtime performance. The default value is 600.

max-inline-slope

After exceeding the maximum number of inlined instructions by repeated inlining, a linear function is used to decrease the allowable size for single functions. The slope of that function is the negative reciprocal of the number specified here. The default value is 32.

min-inline-insns

The repeated inlining is throttled more and more by the linear function after exceeding the limit. To avoid too much throttling, a minimum for this function is specified here to allow repeated inlining for very small functions even when a lot of repeated inlining already has been done. The default value is 130.

max-inline-insns-rtl

For languages that use the RTL inliner (this happens at a later stage than tree inlining), you can set the maximum allowable size (counted in RTL instructions) for the RTL inliner with this parameter. The default value is 600.

max-unrolled-insns

The maximum number of instructions that a loop should have if that loop is unrolled, and if the loop is unrolled, it determines how many times the loop code is unrolled.

hot-bb-count-fraction

Select fraction of the maximal count of repetitions of basic block in program given basic block needs to have to be considered hot.

hot-bb-frequency-fraction

Select fraction of the maximal frequency of executions of basic block in function given basic block needs to have to be considered hot

tracer-dynamic-coverage
tracer-dynamic-coverage-feedback

This value is used to limit superblock formation once the given percentage of executed instructions is covered. This limits unnecessary code size expansion.

The 'tracer-dynamic-coverage-feedback' is used only when profile feedback is available. The real profiles (as opposed to statically estimated ones) are much less balanced allowing the threshold to be larger value.

tracer-max-code-growth

Stop tail duplication once code growth has reached given percentage. This is rather hokey argument, as most of the duplicates will be eliminated later in cross jumping, so it may be set to much higher values than is the desired code growth.

tracer-min-branch-ratio

Stop reverse growth when the reverse probability of best edge is less than this threshold (in percent).

tracer-min-branch-ratio
tracer-min-branch-ratio-feedback

Stop forward growth if the best edge do have probability lower than this threshold.

Similarly to 'tracer-dynamic-coverage' two values are present, one for compilation for profile feedback and one for compilation without. The value for compilation with profile feedback needs to be more conservative (higher) in order to make tracer effective.

ggc-min-expand

GCC uses a garbage collector to manage its own memory allocation. This parameter specifies the minimum percentage by which the garbage collector's heap should be allowed to expand between collections. Tuning this may improve compilation speed; it has no effect on code generation.

The default is 30% + 70% * (RAM/1GB) with an upper bound of 100% when RAM >= 1GB. If getrlimit is available, the notion of "RAM" is the smallest of actual RAM, RLIMIT_RSS, RLIMIT_DATA and RLIMIT_AS. If GCC is not able to calculate RAM on a particular platform, the lower bound of 30% is used. Setting this parameter and 'ggc-min-heapsize' to zero causes a full collection to occur at every opportunity. This is extremely slow, but can be useful for debugging.

ggc-min-heapsize

Minimum size of the garbage collector's heap before it begins bothering to collect garbage. The first collection occurs after the heap expands by 'ggc-min-expand'% beyond 'ggc-min-heapsize'. Again, tuning this may improve compilation speed, and has no effect on code generation.

The default is RAM/8, with a lower bound of 4096 (four megabytes) and an upper bound of 131072 (128 megabytes). If getrlimit is available, the notion of "RAM" is the smallest of actual RAM, RLIMIT_RSS, RLIMIT_DATA and RLIMIT_AS. If GCC is not able to calculate RAM on a particular platform, the lower bound is used. Setting this parameter very large effectively disables garbage collection. Setting this parameter and 'ggc-min-expand' to zero causes a full collection to occur at every opportunity.

Options Controlling the Preprocessor

These options control the C preprocessor, which is run on each C source file before actual compilation.

If you use the '-E' option, nothing is done except preprocessing. Some of these options make sense only together with '-E' because they cause the preprocessor output to be unsuitable for actual compilation.

You can use '-Wp,option' to bypass the compiler driver and pass option directly through to the preprocessor. If option contains commas, it is split into multiple options at the commas. However, many options are modified, translated or interpreted by the compiler driver before being passed to the preprocessor, and '-Wp' forcibly bypasses this phase. The preprocessor's direct interface is undocumented and subject to change, so whenever possible you should avoid using '-Wp' and let the driver handle the options instead.

-D name

Predefine name as a macro, with definition 1.

-D name=definition

Predefine name as a macro, with definition definition. There are no restrictions on the contents of definition, but if you are invoking the preprocessor from a shell or shell-like program you may need to use the shell's quoting syntax to protect characters such as spaces that have a meaning in the shell syntax.

If you wish to define a function-like macro on the command line, write its argument list with surrounding parentheses before the equals sign (if any). Parentheses are meaningful to most shells, so you will need to quote the option. With sh and csh, '-D'name(args...)=definition'' works.

'-D' and '-U' options are processed in the order they are given on the command line. All '-imacros file' and '-include file' options are processed after all '-D' and '-U' options.

-U name

Cancel any previous definition of name, either built in or provided with a '-D' option.

-undef

Do not predefine any system-specific macros. The common predefined macros remain defined.

-I dir

Add the directory dir to the list of directories to be searched for header files. Directories named by '-I' are searched before the standard system include directories. If the directory dir is a standard system include directory, the option is ignored to ensure that the default search order for system directories and the special treatment of system headers are not defeated (see System Headers).

-o file

Write output to file. This is the same as specifying file as the second non-option argument to cpp. gcc has a different interpretation of a second non-option argument, so you must use '-o' to specify the output file.

-Wall

Turns on all optional warnings which are desirable for normal code. At present this is '-Wcomment' and '-Wtrigraphs'. Note that many of the preprocessor's warnings are on by default and have no options to control them.

-Wcomment
-Wcomments

Warn whenever a comment-start sequence /* appears in a /* comment, or whenever a backslash-newline appears in a // comment. (Both forms have the same effect.)

-Wtrigraphs

Warn if any trigraphs are encountered. This option used to take effect only if '-trigraphs' was also specified, but now works independently. Warnings are not given for trigraphs within comments, as they do not affect the meaning of the program.

-Wtraditional

Warn about certain constructs that behave differently in traditional and ISO C. Also warn about ISO C constructs that have no traditional C equivalent, and problematic constructs which should be avoided. See Traditional Mode.

-Wimport

Warn the first time #import is used.

-Wundef

Warn whenever an identifier which is not a macro is encountered in an #if directive, outside of defined. Such identifiers are replaced with zero.

-Wunused-macros

Warn about macros defined in the main file that are unused. A macro is used if it is expanded or tested for existence at least once. The preprocessor will also warn if the macro has not been used at the time it is redefined or undefined.

Built-in macros, macros defined on the command line, and macros defined in include files are not warned about.

Note: If a macro is actually used, but only used in skipped conditional blocks, then CPP will report it as unused. To avoid the warning in such a case, you might improve the scope of the macro's definition by, for example, moving it into the first skipped block. Alternatively, you could provide a dummy use with something like:

#if defined the_macro_causing_the_warning
#endif

-Wendif-labels

Warn whenever an #else or an #endif are followed by text. This usually happens in code of the form

#if FOO
...
#else FOO
...
#endif FOO

The second and third FOO should be in comments, but often are not in older programs. This warning is on by default.

-Werror

Make all warnings into hard errors. Source code which triggers warnings will be rejected.

-Wsystem-headers

Issue warnings for code in system headers. These are normally unhelpful in finding bugs in your own code, therefore suppressed. If you are responsible for the system library, you may want to see them.

-w

Suppress all warnings, including those which GNU CPP issues by default.

-pedantic

Issue all the mandatory diagnostics listed in the C standard. Some of them are left out by default, since they trigger frequently on harmless code.

-pedantic-errors

Issue all the mandatory diagnostics, and make all mandatory diagnostics into errors. This includes mandatory diagnostics that GCC issues without '-pedantic' but treats as warnings.

-M

Instead of outputting the result of preprocessing, output a rule suitable for make describing the dependencies of the main source file. The preprocessor outputs one make rule containing the object file name for that source file, a colon, and the names of all the included files, including those coming from '-include' or '-imacros' command line options.

Unless specified explicitly (with '-MT' or '-MQ'), the object file name consists of the basename of the source file with any suffix replaced with object file suffix. If there are many included files then the rule is split into several lines using \-newline. The rule has no commands.

This option does not suppress the preprocessor's debug output, such as '-dM'. To avoid mixing such debug output with the dependency rules you should explicitly specify the dependency output file with '-MF', or use an environment variable like DEPENDENCIES_OUTPUT (see Environment Variables). Debug output will still be sent to the regular output stream as normal.

Passing '-M' to the driver implies '-E', and suppresses warnings with an implicit '-w'.

-MM

Like '-M' but do not mention header files that are found in system header directories, nor header files that are included, directly or indirectly, from such a header.

This implies that the choice of angle brackets or double quotes in an #include directive does not in itself determine whether that header will appear in '-MM' dependency output. This is a slight change in semantics from GCC versions 3.0 and earlier.

-MF file

When used with '-M' or '-MM', specifies a file to write the dependencies to. If no '-MF' switch is given the preprocessor sends the rules to the same place it would have sent preprocessed output.

When used with the driver options '-MD' or '-MMD', '-MF' overrides the default dependency output file.

-MG

In conjunction with an option such as '-M' requesting dependency generation, '-MG' assumes missing header files are generated files and adds them to the dependency list without raising an error. The dependency filename is taken directly from the #include directive without prepending any path. '-MG' also suppresses preprocessed output, as a missing header file renders this useless.

This feature is used in automatic updating of makefiles.

-MP

This option instructs CPP to add a phony target for each dependency other than the main file, causing each to depend on nothing. These dummy rules work around errors make gives if you remove header files without updating the Makefile to match.

This is typical output:

test.o: test.c test.h

test.h:

-MT target

Change the target of the rule emitted by dependency generation. By default CPP takes the name of the main input file, including any path, deletes any file suffix such as .c, and appends the platform's usual object suffix. The result is the target.

An '-MT' option will set the target to be exactly the string you specify. If you want multiple targets, you can specify them as a single argument to '-MT', or use multiple '-MT' options.

For example, '-MT '$(objpfx)foo.o'' might give

$(objpfx)foo.o: foo.c

-MQ target

Same as '-MT', but it quotes any characters which are special to Make. The default target is automatically quoted, as if it were given with '-MQ'.

-MD

'-MD' is equivalent to '-M -MF file', except that '-E' is not implied. The driver determines file based on whether an '-o' option is given. If it is, the driver uses its argument but with a suffix of .d, otherwise it take the basename of the input file and applies a .d suffix.

If '-MD' is used in conjunction with '-E', any '-o' switch is understood to specify the dependency output file, but if used without '-E', each '-o' is understood to specify a target object file.

Since '-E' is not implied, '-MD' can be used to generate a dependency output file as a side-effect of the compilation process.

-MMD

Like '-MD' except mention only user header files, not system -header files.

-x c
-x c++
-x objective-c
-x assembler-with-cpp

Specify the source language: C, C++, Objective-C, or assembly. This has nothing to do with standards conformance or extensions; it merely selects which base syntax to expect. If you give none of these options, cpp will deduce the language from the extension of the source file: .c, .cc, .m, or .S. Some other common extensions for C++ and assembly are also recognized. If cpp does not recognize the extension, it will treat the file as C; this is the most generic mode. Note that C++ and Objective-C are not supported in GCC4TI.

Note: Previous versions of cpp accepted a '-lang' option which selected both the language and the standards conformance level. This option has been removed, because it conflicts with the '-l' option.

-std=standard
-ansi

Specify the standard to which the code should conform. Currently CPP knows about C and C++ standards; others may be added in the future (although it will not be important for GCC4TI).

standard may be one of:

iso9899:1990
c89

The ISO C standard from 1990. c89 is the customary shorthand for this version of the standard.

The '-ansi' option is equivalent to '-std=c89'.

iso9899:199409

The 1990 C standard, as amended in 1994.

iso9899:1999
c99
iso9899:199x
c9x

The revised ISO C standard, published in December 1999. Before publication, this was known as C9X.

gnu89

The 1990 C standard plus GNU extensions. This is the default.

gnu99
gnu9x

The 1999 C standard plus GNU extensions.

c++98

The 1998 ISO C++ standard plus amendments.

gnu++98

The same as '-std=c++98' plus GNU extensions. This is the default for C++ code.

-I-

Split the include path. Any directories specified with '-I' options before '-I-' are searched only for headers requested with #include "file"; they are not searched for #include <file>. If additional directories are specified with '-I' options after the '-I-', those directories are searched for all #include directives.

In addition, '-I-' inhibits the use of the directory of the current file directory as the first search directory for #include "file".

-nostdinc

Do not search the standard system directories for header files. Only the directories you have specified with '-I' options (and the directory of the current file, if appropriate) are searched.

-nostdinc++

Do not search for header files in the C++-specific standard directories, but do still search the other standard directories (not applicable to GCC4TI, because it does not support C++).

-include file

Process file as if #include "file" appeared as the first line of the primary source file. However, the first directory searched for file is the preprocessor's working directory instead of the directory containing the main source file. If not found there, it is searched for in the remainder of the #include "..." search chain as normal.

If multiple '-include' options are given, the files are included in the order they appear on the command line.

-imacros file

Exactly like '-include', except that any output produced by scanning file is thrown away. Macros it defines remain defined. This allows you to acquire all the macros from a header without also processing its declarations.

All files specified by '-imacros' are processed before all files specified by '-include'.

-idirafter dir

Search dir for header files, but do it after all directories specified with '-I' and the standard system directories have been exhausted. dir is treated as a system include directory.

-iprefix prefix

Specify prefix as the prefix for subsequent '-iwithprefix' options. If the prefix represents a directory, you should include the final /.

-iwithprefix dir
-iwithprefixbefore dir

Append dir to the prefix specified previously with '-iprefix', and add the resulting directory to the include search path. '-iwithprefixbefore' puts it in the same place '-I' would; '-iwithprefix' puts it where '-idirafter' would.

Use of these options is discouraged.

-isystem dir

Search dir for header files, after all directories specified by '-I' but before the standard system directories. Mark it as a system directory, so that it gets the same special treatment as is applied to the standard system directories. See System Headers.

-fpreprocessed

Indicate to the preprocessor that the input file has already been preprocessed. This suppresses things like macro expansion, trigraph conversion, escaped newline splicing, and processing of most directives. The preprocessor still recognizes and removes comments, so that you can pass a file preprocessed with '-C' to the compiler without problems. In this mode the integrated preprocessor is little more than a tokenizer for the front ends.

'-fpreprocessed' is implicit if the input file has one of the extensions .i, .ii or .mi. These are the extensions that GCC uses for preprocessed files created by '-save-temps'.

-ftabstop=width

Set the distance between tab stops. This helps the preprocessor report correct column numbers in warnings or errors, even if tabs appear on the line. If the value is less than 1 or greater than 100, the option is ignored. The default is 8.

-fno-show-column

Do not print column numbers in diagnostics. This may be necessary if diagnostics are being scanned by a program that does not understand the column numbers, such as dejagnu.

-A predicate=answer

Make an assertion with the predicate predicate and answer answer. This form is preferred to the older form '-A predicate(answer)', which is still supported, because it does not use shell special characters. See Assertions.

-A -predicate=answer

Cancel an assertion with the predicate predicate and answer answer.

-dCHARS

CHARS is a sequence of one or more of the following characters, and must not be preceded by a space. Other characters are interpreted by the compiler proper, or reserved for future versions of GCC, and so are silently ignored. If you specify characters whose behavior conflicts, the result is undefined.

M

Instead of the normal output, generate a list of #define directives for all the macros defined during the execution of the preprocessor, including predefined macros. This gives you a way of finding out what is predefined in your version of the preprocessor. Assuming you have no file foo.h, the command

touch foo.h; cpp -dM foo.h

will show all the predefined macros.

D

Like M except in two respects: it does not include the predefined macros, and it outputs both the #define directives and the result of preprocessing. Both kinds of output go to the standard output file.

N

Like D, but emit only the macro names, not their expansions.

I

Output #include directives in addition to the result of preprocessing.

-P

Inhibit generation of linemarkers in the output from the preprocessor. This might be useful when running the preprocessor on something that is not C code, and will be sent to a program which might be confused by the linemarkers. See Preprocessor Output.

-C

Do not discard comments. All comments are passed through to the output file, except for comments in processed directives, which are deleted along with the directive.

You should be prepared for side effects when using '-C'; it causes the preprocessor to treat comments as tokens in their own right. For example, comments appearing at the start of what would be a directive line have the effect of turning that line into an ordinary source line, since the first token on the line is no longer a #.

-CC

Do not discard comments, including during macro expansion. This is like '-C', except that comments contained within macros are also passed through to the output file where the macro is expanded.

In addition to the side-effects of the '-C' option, the '-CC' option causes all C++-style comments inside a macro to be converted to C-style comments. This is to prevent later use of that macro from inadvertently commenting out the remainder of the source line.

The '-CC' option is generally used to support lint comments.

-gcc

Define the macros __GNUC__, __GNUC_MINOR__ and __GNUC_PATCHLEVEL__. These are defined automatically when you use gcc -E; you can turn them off in that case with '-no-gcc'.

-traditional-cpp

Try to imitate the behavior of old-fashioned C preprocessors, as opposed to ISO C preprocessors. See Traditional Mode.

-trigraphs

Process trigraph sequences. See Initial processing. These are three-character sequences, all starting with ??, that are defined by ISO C to stand for single characters. For example, ??/ stands for \, so '??/n' is a character constant for a newline. By default, GCC ignores trigraphs, but in standard-conforming modes it converts them. See the '-std' and '-ansi' options.

The nine trigraphs and their replacements are

Trigraph:       ??(  ??)  ??<  ??>  ??=  ??/  ??'  ??!  ??-
Replacement:      [    ]    {    }    #    \    ^    |    ~

-remap

Enable special code to work around file systems which only permit very short file names, such as MS-DOS.

--help
--target-help

Print text describing all the command line options instead of preprocessing anything.

-v

Verbose mode. Print out GNU CPP's version number at the beginning of execution, and report the final form of the include path.

-H

Print the name of each header file used, in addition to other normal activities. Each name is indented to show how deep in the #include stack it is.

-version
--version

Print out GNU CPP's version number. With one dash, proceed to preprocess as normal. With two dashes, exit immediately.

Passing Options to the Assembler and Linker

You can pass options to the GNU assembler, to the A68k assembler, and to the GNU linker.

However, this is only possible this way if you are using the command line compiler. In the IDE, you have to use the appropriate edit boxes in the project options.

-Wa,option

Pass option as an option to the GNU assembler. If option contains commas, it is split into multiple options at the commas.

-WA,option

Pass option as an option to the A68k assembler. If option contains commas, it is split into multiple options at the commas. This is a TIGCC/GCC4TI-only switch.

-Wl,option

Pass option as an option to the GNU linker. If option contains commas, it is split into multiple options at the commas.

Options for Directory Search

These options specify directories to search for header files, for libraries and for parts of the compiler:

-Idir

Add the directory dir to the head of the list of directories to be searched for header files. This can be used to override a system header file, substituting your own version, since these directories are searched before the system header file directories. However, you should not use this option to add directories that contain vendor-supplied system header files (use '-isystem' for that). If you use more than one '-I' option, the directories are scanned in left-to-right order; the standard system directories come after.

If a standard system include directory, or a directory specified with '-isystem', is also specified with '-I', the '-I' option will be ignored. The directory will still be searched but as a system directory at its normal position in the system include chain. This is to ensure that GCC's procedure to fix buggy system headers and the ordering for the include_next directive are not inadvertently changed. If you really need to change the search order for system directories, use the '-nostdinc' and/or '-isystem' options.

-I-

Any directories you specify with '-I' options before the '-I-' option are searched only for the case of #include "file"; they are not searched for #include <file>.

If additional directories are specified with '-I' options after the '-I-', these directories are searched for all #include directives. (Ordinarily all '-I' directories are used this way.)

In addition, the '-I-' option inhibits the use of the current directory (where the current input file came from) as the first search directory for #include "file". There is no way to override this effect of '-I-'. With '-I.' you can specify searching the directory which was current when the compiler was invoked. That is not exactly the same as what the preprocessor does by default, but it is often satisfactory.

'-I-' does not inhibit the use of the standard system directories for header files. Thus, '-I-' and '-nostdinc' are independent.

-Ldir

Add directory dir to the list of directories to be searched for '-l'.

-Bprefix

This option specifies where to find the executables, libraries, include files, and data files of the compiler itself.

The compiler will check to see if the path provided by the '-B' refers to a directory, and if necessary it will add a directory separator character at the end of the path.

Another way to specify a prefix much like the '-B' prefix is to use the environment variable GCC_EXEC_PREFIX. See Environment Variables.

-specs=file

Process file after the compiler reads in the standard specs file, in order to override the defaults that the gcc driver program uses when determining what switches to pass to the individual programs. This does not work in GCC4TI.

GCC Spec Strings

gcc is a driver program. It performs its job by invoking a sequence of other programs to do the work of compiling, assembling and linking. GCC interprets its command-line parameters and uses these to deduce which programs it should invoke, and which command-line options it ought to place on their command lines. This behavior is controlled by spec strings. In most cases there is one spec string for each program that GCC can invoke, but a few programs have multiple spec strings to control their behavior. The spec strings built into GCC can be overridden by using the '-specs=' command-line switch to specify a spec file.

Spec files are plaintext files that are used to construct spec strings. They consist of a sequence of directives separated by blank lines.

Since gcc only performs a small part of the tasks in GCC4TI, spec strings are more or less irrelevant. For details on specs, see the original documentation on the net.

M680x0 Target Options

The GCC compiler used in GCC4TI is configured for just one target family: the Motorola M680x0 (M68k) family. In the TI-89, TI-92+, and V200 calculators, an MC68000 processor is used, therefore GCC4TI creates code for such a processor by default. However, switches specifying the processor model, such as '-m68020', still exist, although they are not useful. However, there are also options that control the code that is generated specifically for TI calculators; they also start with '-m':

-mno-bss

Output all uninitialized global or static variables as normal data with zero content. Note that this leads to different semantics if the program is not compressed or archived: The variables will keep their values even after program termination, instead of being initialized to zero every time the program is run. For a better alternative, see MERGE_BSS.

-mlong

Consider type int to be 32 bits wide, like long int. The '-mshort' option is enabled by default in GCC4TI; the negative is actually '-mnoshort', but '-mno-short' and '-mlong' have been added as aliases. Constants such as INT_MAX are set to the appropriate values, and __INT_SHORT__ will be defined if short integers are used (i.e. if this switch is not used). This option may be useful if you need to port code from a system which uses long integers.

-mno-tios

Again, this is the negative form of a switch called '-mtios', which changes the convention for returning pointers from functions, and which also implies '-fcall-used-d2'. This is necessary to make GCC work with the TIOS calling conventions, therefore '-mno-tios' may only be used if no interaction with the operating system is required. Since library calls also use the TIOS calling convention, they cannot be used either; you should disable linking against tigcc.a. Only use this option if you know exactly what you are doing.

-mmlink

Assume that uninitialized global variables can be handled smartly through BSS blocks even in kernel-less mode.

-mpcrel

Use the pc-relative addressing mode of the 68000 directly, instead of using a global offset table (also known as the relocation table). Therefore, this option produces position-independent code.

-mregparm[=regcount]

Use register passing for all user-defined functions. regcount data registers plus regcount address registers are used to pass arguments to functions. If regcount is not specified, a default value of 2 is used. You should not specify a value higher than 6, or 5 if you use OPTIMIZE_ROM_CALLS. Note that you have to be careful with callback functions if you use this switch, although you will be warned about incompatiblities.

-mbitfield

Use bit-field instructions.

-malign-int

Aligns int, long, long long, float, double, and long double variables on a 32-bit boundary.

-mno-strict-align
-mstrict-align

Do not or do assume that unaligned memory references will be handled by the system.

-mno-merge-sections

Do not merge the .text and .data sections, as GCC4TI normally does (to save space used by relocation).

-mmerge-to-data

When merging sections, merge to .data rather than to .text.

-mrodata-to-text

When not merging sections, put read-only data into .text rather than .data.

Options for Code Generation Conventions

These machine-independent options control the interface conventions used in code generation.

Most of them have both positive and negative forms; the negative form of '-ffoo' would be '-fno-foo'. In the table below, only one of the forms is listed: the one which is not the default. You can figure out the other form by either removing 'no-' or adding it.

-fbounds-check

For front-ends that support it, generate additional code to check that indices used to access arrays are within the declared range. This is currently only supported by the Java and Fortran 77 front-ends, where this option defaults to true and false respectively.

-ftrapv

This option generates traps for signed overflow on addition, subtraction, multiplication operations.

-fexceptions

Enable exception handling. Generates extra code needed to propagate exceptions. In principle, you may need to enable this option when compiling C code that needs to interoperate properly with exception handlers, but this is useless in GCC4TI, as the standard OS uses its own exception handling mechanism (see error.h).

-fnon-call-exceptions

Generate code that allows trapping instructions to throw exceptions. Probably useless in GCC4TI.

-funwind-tables

Similar to '-fexceptions', except that it will just generate any needed static data, but will not affect the generated code in any other way. Probably useless in GCC4TI.

-fasynchronous-unwind-tables

Generate unwind table in dwarf2 format, if supported by target machine. The table is exact at each instruction boundary, so it can be used for stack unwinding from asynchronous events (such as debugger or garbage collector).

-fpcc-struct-return

Return "short" struct and union values in memory like longer ones, rather than in registers. This convention is less efficient, but it has the advantage of allowing intercallability between GCC-compiled files and files compiled with other compilers, particularly the Portable C Compiler (pcc).

The precise convention for returning structures in memory depends on the target configuration macros.

Short structures and unions are those whose size and alignment match that of some integer type.

Warning: code compiled with the '-fpcc-struct-return' switch is not binary compatible with code compiled with the '-freg-struct-return' switch. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-freg-struct-return

Return struct and union values in registers when possible. This is more efficient for small structures than '-fpcc-struct-return'.

If you specify neither '-fpcc-struct-return' nor '-freg-struct-return', GCC4TI defaults to '-freg-struct-return'.

Warning: code compiled with the '-freg-struct-return' switch is not binary compatible with code compiled with the '-fpcc-struct-return' switch. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-fshort-enums

Allocate to an enum type only as many bytes as it needs for the declared range of possible values. Specifically, the enum type will be equivalent to the smallest integer type which has enough room.

Warning: the '-fshort-enums' switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without that switch. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-fshort-double

Use the same size for double as for float. This is always true in GCC4TI, regardless of this switch.

Warning: the '-fshort-double' switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without that switch. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-fshort-wchar

Override the underlying type for wchar_t to be short unsigned int instead of the default for the target. This option is useful for building programs to run under WINE.

Warning: the '-fshort-wchar' switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without that switch. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-fshared-data

Requests that the data and non-const variables of this compilation be shared data rather than private data. The distinction makes sense only on certain operating systems, where shared data is shared between processes running the same program, while private data exists in one copy per process.

-fno-common

Allocate even uninitialized global variables in the data section of the object file, rather than generating them as common blocks. This has the effect that if the same variable is declared (without extern) in two different compilations, you will get an error when you link them. The only reason this might be useful is if you wish to verify that the program will work on other systems which always work this way. Currently, GCC4TI does not support this option, since it needs common symbols to communicate with the linker.

-fno-ident

Ignore the #ident directive.

-fno-gnu-linker

Do not output global initializations in the form used by the GNU linker Useless in GCC4TI, because global initializations are not implemented.

-finhibit-size-directive

Don't output a .size assembler directive, or anything else that would cause trouble if the function is split in the middle, and the two halves are placed at locations far apart in memory. This option is used when compiling crtstuff.c; you should not need to use it for anything else.

-fverbose-asm

Put extra commentary information in the generated assembly code to make it more readable. This option is generally only of use to those who actually need to read the generated assembly code (perhaps while debugging the compiler itself).

'-fno-verbose-asm', the default, causes the extra information to be omitted and is useful when comparing two assembler files.

-fvolatile

Consider all memory references through pointers to be volatile.

-fvolatile-global

Consider all memory references to extern and global data items to be volatile. GCC does not consider static data items to be volatile because of this switch.

-fvolatile-static

Consider all memory references to static data to be volatile.

-fpic

Generate position-independent code (PIC) suitable for use in a shared library. However, it requires special support of the operating system (like dynamic loaders, etc.). So forget it with the TIOS; maybe some future ASM shells will support this. At the moment, forget this nice option.

-fPIC

If supported for the target machine, emit position-independent code, suitable for dynamic linking and avoiding any limit on the size of the global offset table.

-ffixed-reg

Treat the register named reg as a fixed register; generated code should never refer to it (except perhaps as a stack pointer, frame pointer or in some other fixed role).

This flag does not have a negative form, because it specifies a three-way choice.

-fcall-used-reg

Treat the register named reg as an allocable register that is clobbered by function calls. It may be allocated for temporaries or variables that do not live across a call. Functions compiled this way will not save and restore the register reg.

It is an error to used this flag with the frame pointer or stack pointer. Use of this flag for other registers that have fixed pervasive roles in the machine's execution model will produce disastrous results.

This flag does not have a negative form, because it specifies a three-way choice.

-fcall-saved-reg

Treat the register named reg as an allocable register saved by functions. It may be allocated even for temporaries or variables that live across a call. Functions compiled this way will save and restore the register reg if they use it.

It is an error to used this flag with the frame pointer or stack pointer. Use of this flag for other registers that have fixed pervasive roles in the machine's execution model will produce disastrous results.

A different sort of disaster will result from the use of this flag for a register in which function values may be returned.

This flag does not have a negative form, because it specifies a three-way choice.

-freg-relative-reg

Refer to all labels only in relation to the register specified in reg. This can make the code somewhat smaller, but you should use this option with care as it is not fully supported. This option is implemented only in TIGCC/GCC4TI.

-fpack-struct

Pack all structure members together without holes.

Warning: the '-fpack-struct' switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without that switch. Additionally, it makes the code suboptimal. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-finstrument-functions

Generate instrumentation calls for entry and exit to functions. Just after function entry and just before function exit, the following profiling functions will be called with the address of the current function and its call site. (On some platforms, __builtin_return_address does not work beyond the current function, so the call site information may not be available to the profiling functions otherwise.)

void __cyg_profile_func_enter (void *this_fn,
                               void *call_site);
void __cyg_profile_func_exit  (void *this_fn,
                               void *call_site);

The first argument is the address of the start of the current function, which may be looked up exactly in the symbol table.

This instrumentation is also done for functions expanded inline in other functions. The profiling calls will indicate where, conceptually, the inline function is entered and exited. This means that addressable versions of such functions must be available. If all your uses of a function are expanded inline, this may mean an additional expansion of code size. If you use extern inline in your C code, an addressable version of such functions must be provided. (This is normally the case anyways, but if you get lucky and the optimizer always expands the functions inline, you might have gotten away without providing static copies.)

A function may be given the attribute no_instrument_function, in which case this instrumentation will not be done. This can be used, for example, for the profiling functions listed above, high-priority interrupt routines, and any functions from which the profiling functions cannot safely be called (perhaps signal handlers, if the profiling routines generate output or allocate memory).

-fstack-check

Generate code to verify that you do not go beyond the boundary of the stack. As this requires support from the operating system, it probably does not work in GCC4TI.

-fstack-limit-register=reg
-fstack-limit-symbol=sym
-fno-stack-limit

Generate code to ensure that the stack does not grow beyond a certain value, either the value of a register or the address of a symbol. If the stack would grow beyond the value, a signal is raised. For most targets, the signal is raised before the stack overruns the boundary, so it is possible to catch the signal without taking special precautions.

For instance, if the stack starts at absolute address 0x80000000 and grows downwards, you can use the flags '-fstack-limit-symbol=__stack_limit' and '-Wl,--defsym,__stack_limit=0x7ffe0000' to enforce a stack limit of 128KB. Note that this may only work with the GNU linker.

-fargument-alias
-fargument-noalias
-fargument-noalias-global

Specify the possible relationships among parameters and between parameters and global data.

Each language will automatically use whatever option is required by the language standard. You should not need to use these options yourself.

-fleading-underscore

This option and its counterpart, '-fno-leading-underscore', forcibly change the way C symbols are represented in the object file. One use is to help link with legacy assembly code.

Warning: the '-fleading-underscore' switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without that switch. Use it to conform to a non-default application binary interface.

-ftls-model=model

Alter the thread-local storage model to be used. The model argument should be one of global-dynamic, local-dynamic, initial-exec or local-exec.

The default without '-fpic' is initial-exec; with '-fpic' the default is global-dynamic.

Useless in TIGCC/GCC4TI, as threads are not supported.

Environment Variables Affecting GCC

This section describes several environment variables that affect how GCC operates. Some of them work by specifying directories or prefixes to use when searching for various kinds of files. Some are used to specify other aspects of the compilation environment.

Note that you can also specify places to search using options such as '-B', '-I' and '-L' (see Options for Directory Search).

LANG
LC_CTYPE
LC_MESSAGES
LC_ALL

These environment variables control the way that GCC uses localization information that allow GCC to work with different national conventions. GCC inspects the locale categories LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES if it has been configured to do so. These locale categories can be set to any value supported by your installation. A typical value is en_UK for English in the United Kingdom.

The LC_CTYPE environment variable specifies character classification. GCC uses it to determine the character boundaries in a string; this is needed for some multibyte encodings that contain quote and escape characters that would otherwise be interpreted as a string end or escape.

The LC_MESSAGES environment variable specifies the language to use in diagnostic messages.

If the LC_ALL environment variable is set, it overrides the value of LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES; otherwise, LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES default to the value of the LANG environment variable. If none of these variables are set, GCC defaults to traditional C English behavior.

TMPDIR

If TMPDIR is set, it specifies the directory to use for temporary files. GCC uses temporary files to hold the output of one stage of compilation which is to be used as input to the next stage: for example, the output of the preprocessor, which is the input to the compiler proper.

GCC_EXEC_PREFIX

If GCC_EXEC_PREFIX is set, it specifies a prefix to use in the names of the subprograms executed by the compiler. No slash is added when this prefix is combined with the name of a subprogram, but you can specify a prefix that ends with a slash if you wish.

If GCC_EXEC_PREFIX is not set, GCC will attempt to figure out an appropriate prefix to use based on the pathname it was invoked with.

If GCC cannot find the subprogram using the specified prefix, it tries looking in the usual places for the subprogram.

The default value of GCC_EXEC_PREFIX is prefix/lib/gcc-lib/ where prefix is the value of prefix when you ran the configure script.

Other prefixes specified with '-B' take precedence over this prefix.

In addition, the prefix is used in an unusual way in finding the directories to search for header files. For each of the standard directories whose name normally begins with /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib (more precisely, with the value of GCC_INCLUDE_DIR), GCC tries replacing that beginning with the specified prefix to produce an alternate directory name. Thus, with '-Bfoo/', GCC will search foo/bar where it would normally search /usr/local/lib/bar. These alternate directories are searched first; the standard directories come next.

COMPILER_PATH

The value of COMPILER_PATH is a colon-separated list of directories, much like PATH. GCC tries the directories thus specified when searching for subprograms, if it can't find the subprograms using GCC_EXEC_PREFIX.

LIBRARY_PATH

The value of LIBRARY_PATH is a colon-separated list of directories, much like PATH. When configured as a native compiler (which GCC4TI is not), GCC tries the directories thus specified when searching for special linker files, if it can't find them using GCC_EXEC_PREFIX. Linking using GCC also uses these directories when searching for ordinary libraries for the '-l' option (but directories specified with '-L' come first).

LANG

This variable is used to pass locale information to the compiler. One way in which this information is used is to determine the character set to be used when character literals, string literals and comments are parsed. When the compiler is configured to allow multibyte characters, the following values for LANG are recognized:

C-JIS

Recognize JIS characters.

C-SJIS

Recognize SJIS characters.

C-EUCJP

Recognize EUCJP characters.

If LANG is not defined, or if it has some other value, then the compiler will use mblen and mbtowc as defined by the default locale to recognize and translate multibyte characters.

Some additional environments variables affect the behavior of the preprocessor.

CPATH
C_INCLUDE_PATH

Each variable's value is a list of directories separated by a special character, much like PATH, in which to look for header files. The special character, PATH_SEPARATOR, is target-dependent and determined at GCC build time. For Windows-based targets it is a semicolon, and for almost all other targets it is a colon.

CPATH specifies a list of directories to be searched as if specified with '-I', but after any paths given with '-I' options on the command line.

C_INCLUDE_PATH specifies a list of directories to be searched as if specified with '-isystem', but after any paths given with '-isystem' options on the command line.

In all these variables, an empty element instructs the compiler to search its current working directory. Empty elements can appear at the beginning or end of a path. For instance, if the value of CPATH is :/special/include, that has the same effect as -I. -I/special/include.

DEPENDENCIES_OUTPUT

If this variable is set, its value specifies how to output dependencies for Make based on the non-system header files processed by the compiler. System header files are ignored in the dependency output.

The value of DEPENDENCIES_OUTPUT can be just a file name, in which case the Make rules are written to that file, guessing the target name from the source file name. Or the value can have the form file target, in which case the rules are written to file file using target as the target name.

In other words, this environment variable is equivalent to combining the options '-MM' and '-MF' (see Options Controlling the Preprocessor), with an optional '-MT' switch, too.

SUNPRO_DEPENDENCIES

This variable is the same as DEPENDENCIES_OUTPUT (see above), except that system header files are not ignored, so it implies '-M' rather than '-MM' (see Options Controlling the Preprocessor). However, the dependence on the main input file is omitted.

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