David Abrahams wrote: >>I'll describe it once more: *If* a program is compiled with the C++ >>compiler, is it *then* possible to still link it with the C compiler? >>This is the question this test tries to answer. > > > Okay, I understand that. What I have never understood is why that > should be an appropriate thing to test for the Python executable. > There's no reason to compile any of Python with a C++ compiler.
I hope you understand now: it is necessary if you want to link C++ extension modules into a Python interpreter (statically, not dynamically). >>Wrong. The test was introduced in response to complaints that Python >>unnecessarily links with libstdc++ on some Linux systems. > > > Apparently it still does. Not "still", but "again", since recent changes in gcc. >>On these Linux systems, it was well possible to build main() with a >>C++ compiler > > > Nobody would need to build Python's main() with a C++ compiler, if > you'd just comment out the 'extern "C"'. Wrong. People that statically link C++ extensions modules on systems where the C++ compiler requires main to be compiled as C++ need to do such a thing. One such compiler is gcc on systems where the binary format does not support .init sections. >>and still link the entire thing with gcc. Since main() doesn't use >>any libstdc++ functionality, and since collect2/__main isn't used, >>one would indeed expect that linking with CXX is not necessary. > > > It isn't. Hmmm. It is. Try for yourself. You get an unresolved gxx_personality_v0. > I have tested Boost.Python and C++ extension modules on a wide variety > of Linux systems, and have seen this phenomenon. Did you try on Linux systems released 1994? That don't use ELF as the binary format? > I think either the ELF Linux loader changed substantially since 1995, > or whoever introduced this test was just confused. No. The ELF loader was *introduced* since 1995. Dynamic loading was not available before. Regards, Martin _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
