How does gcc find as, ld and other binutils executables?

Question

Is their location hardcoded into gcc code or does gcc just call as and we must have as location in our PATH variable?

And in the latter case, how could we create two completely separate gcc toolchains? I mean, how can we make gcc-A invoke as-A and gcc-B invoke as-B if as-A and as-B are both called as?

Answer 1

Some of the paths (e.g., to cc1) are compiled in. Others (e.g., as) use normal lookup in $PATH. This can vary depending on the options GCC is configured with.

You can tell fairly easily by running with strace, and grepping for exec|stat.

$ strace -f gcc foo.c -o foo |& grep exec
⋮
[pid 24943] execve("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.6.1/cc1", …

That is a call to cc1 by a compiled-in path, as you can see from the lack of looking for it. Its also not in $PATH.

[pid 24944] execve("/home/anthony/bin/as", ["as", "--64", "-o", "/tmp/ccCIrcGi.o", "/tmp/ccbw3PkL.s"], [/* 51 vars */]) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
[pid 24944] execve("/usr/local/bin/as", ["as", "--64", "-o", "/tmp/ccCIrcGi.o", "/tmp/ccbw3PkL.s"], [/* 51 vars */]) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
[pid 24944] execve("/usr/bin/as", ["as", "--64", "-o", "/tmp/ccCIrcGi.o", "/tmp/ccbw3PkL.s"], [/* 51 vars */]) = 0

That is looking for as in $PATH. You can tell because its trying each location in $PATH in order.

I've omitted a lot of strace output—even with just stat and exec, its several pages long.

Running gcc -v will show you some of the compiled-in paths (as part of the configure line).

Answer 2

How could we create two completely separate gcc toolchains?

Compile GCC from source twice, detailed instructions at: Multiple glibc libraries on a single host

Everything is hardcoded and highly coupled as far as I can see, I don't think there is any other decent solution.

Query the GCC search path

You can also query the GCC search path with:

gcc -print-search-dirs | grep -E '^programs' | tr ':' '\n'

sample output:

programs
 =/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/../../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/../../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu/
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/../../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/bin/

and a specific program with:

gcc -print-prog-name=cc1

sample output:

/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/cc1

GCC spec files

It is wort mentioning that what actually determines the final cpp, ld, as are the "spec" files in the GCC source code, see also: What are GCC's passes and invoked programs?