Detlef Vollmann wrote:
> > > The only time rebuilding makes sense is if you cannot use the default
> > > location for the pre-built toolchain,  or you have a host that has not
> > > pre-built toolchains,
> IMHO, a toolchain that requires a specific location in the host
> filesystem is broken anyway.

All the prebuilt ones I've seen do.  It would be great if they didn't,
but they do.

> > A pre-built binary GCC 2.7.2 distribution is likely to always function
> > correctly on future hosts where it will run, and always produce the
> > same code, however.
> That pre-built toolchain is probably dynamically linked against
> a C runtime library that you don't have around any more...

C runtime compatibility is quite good.  In practice I've not seen this
kind of problem, even with the the most up to date C experimental
runtime library on GNU/Linux and a toolchain that is dated from 2001
and built on a different GNU/Linux distribution.  I use the same
prebuilt toolchains on several totally different flavours of
GNU/Linux, some very old and some very up to date.

This may be because the toolchain only uses very standard parts of the
runtime anyway.  Basically reading/writing files, printf, etc.
This also adds to the confidence that the binaries it produces are
identical from one year to the next.

If it didn't work, I'd recommend virtual machines to run the old
toolchains... :-) But it seems to be fine.

Runtime compatibility over multiple years may be more of an issue with
Cygwin versions.

-- Jamie

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