gnu toolchain update

Nick Clifton sent out a release note a month ago that completely passed me by.  Here’s the bits I found interesting:

 

GCC 6.2:

  • linux/x86 targes now default to enabling the compressiong of debug sections.  This can be reverted by using the –enable-compressed-debug-sections=no configure option.
  • There’s a –no-pad-sections command, which prevents padding sections, no-doubt helpful for the tiny embedded platform world.

GDB:

  • GDB and GDBServer are now build witha  c C++ compiler by default.  Don’t know if that impacts end users much, but as a C++ developer I find it interesting.
  • You can now pass a negative repeat count in the ‘x’ command, to examine memory some count backwards from the current address.
  • Apparently there are improvements to the mechanisms provided to front ends.

G++ :

  • new option -fconstexpr-loop-limit=<n>, which sets the maximum number of iterations in a constexpr loop.
  • -fstrong-eval-order forces the evaluation of member acess, array subscripting, and shipt expressions in left-to-right order, and assigments as right-to-left, as adopted for C++17.  Enabled by default when using -std=c++1z.
  • support for _Float<N>