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The product-group I work for is currently using gcc 3.4.6 (we know it is ancient) for a large low-level c-code base, and want to upgrade to a later version. We have seen performance benefits testing different versions of gcc 4.x on all hardware platforms we tested it on. We are however very scared of c-compiler bugs (for a good reason historically), and wonder if anyone has insight to which version we should upgrade to.
Are people using 4.3.2 for large code-bases and feel that it works fine?
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In general, it is a good idea to use the latest g++ compiler. However, in a few occasions I have had problems with the libraries that I use. For example, the version 4.5 of g++ broke the version of boost::xpressive that I was using. Or better said, it revealed something broken in the library.
With GCC compilers installed, we can now proceed to install multiple versions of G++ compilers. Alternatively, you can install both GCC and G++ compilers with a single command, as shown below.
The best quality control for gcc is the linux kernel. GCC is the compiler of choice for basically all major open source C/C++ programs. A released GCC, especially one like 4.3.X, which is in major linux distros, should be pretty good.
GCC 4.3 also has better support for optimizations on newer cpus.
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When I migrated a project from GCC 3 to GCC 4 I ran several tests to ensure that behavior was the same before and after. Can you just run a run a set of (hopefully automated) tests to confirm the correct behavior? After all, you want the "correct" behavior, not necessarily the GCC 3 behavior.
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