C++11 attributes stored with debug information? - c++11

Its a bit of an odd question.. Does anyone know if g++ 4.8 and above stores C++11 attributes with debug symbols ?
I'm thinking about writing a g++ plugin to add "user defined attributes" to g++ and was looking for example code showing the "tried and true" way to extract attributes from the g++ ast.
Sorry for the general question, I was having trouble tracking down the specific function in the gnu compiler source.
I'm asking the question to help decide whether to keep looking or starting new.

Apparently, it neither puts implementation-defined nor user-defined attributes into the debug symbols. Of course, it doesn't mean that you cannot modify the source of the compiler to make it happen.
Perhaps this may be of interest to you.

Related

Localize g++ compile options within code

I'm looking for a simple way to localize certain g++ (g++-4.9 to be specific) compile options to certain lines of code or at least targeted functions. I'm interested generally speaking, but also specifically to the -fast-math, -ffinite-math-only and -fno-signed-zeros options.
I presume that localization at the *.cpp file level is possible with make utility, but I'm hoping there is a way to enable it in the code itself, through #pragma or __attribute__ or something. I want to do this not only to minimize dependencies to external files (i.e. risk of incorrect makefile) but also to hopefully hyperlocalize certain FP behavior to specific equations within a function.
Alternatively, if localization of FP behavior by inline directives is NOT possible, what can I do to at least trigger a compile time error if desired compiler directive is NOT enabled in project build (e.g. makefile is lost or inappropriately modified).
I would presume that such inline optimization might be compiler specific, g++ in this case, but that is a compromise I'm willing to take.
In gcc you can use function attribute optimize:
void f () __attribute__ ((optimize("fast-math"), optimize("finite-math-only"), optimize("no-signed-zeros")));
I'm not sure that you are using the "localize" word correctly. Localization is related to adapting software to users of different human languages (French, Russian, Chinese...)
Perhaps you want to ask the compiler to optimize some functions with other optimization flags.
This is possible using #pragma GCC optimize etc... or using some function attributes
You might be able to turn on some bits of this with the fpmath option in a function attribute, but this was not clear to me from the docs. In light of that, I will focus on detection instead:
-fast-math already turns on -ffinite-math-only, so you don't need to worry about that. The docs for -fast-math say:
This option causes the preprocessor macro FAST_MATH to be
defined.
Which means it can be detected via
#ifndef __FAST_MATH__
#error "The -fast-math compiler option is required"
#endif
I have not yet found a compile-time way to detect the presence of -fno-signed-zeros

Boost pretty print for GCC error messages

I'm using GCC 4.7.2. My code is rather heavy on template, STL and boost usage. When I compile and there is an error in some class or function that is derived from or uses some boost/STL functionality, I get error messages showing spectacularly hideous return types and/or function arguments for my classes/function.
My question:
Is there a prettyprint type of thing for GCC warnings/errors containing boost/STL types, so that the return types shown in error messages correspond to what I've typed in the code, or at least, become more intelligible?
I have briefly skimmed through this question, however, that is about GDB rather than GCC...
I've also come across this pretty printer in Haskell, but that just seems to add structure, not take away (mostly) unneeded detail...
Any other suggestions?
I asked a similar question, where someone suggested I try gccfilter. It's a Perl script that re-formats the output of g++ and colorizes it, shortens it, hides full pathnames, and lots more.
Actually, that suggestion answers this question really well too: it's capable of hiding unneeded detail and pretty-printing both STL and boost types. So: I'll leave this here as an answer too.
The only drawback I could see is that g++ needs to be called from within the script (i.e., piping to it is not possible at the time). I suspect that's easily fixed, and in any case, it's a relatively minor issue.
You could try STLfilt as mentioned in 'C++ Template Metaprogramming' by David Abrahms & Alesky Gurtovoy.
The book contains a chapter on template message diagnostics. It suggests using the STLFilt /showback:N to eliminate compiler backtrace material in order to get simplified output.

Getting rid of "warning: dereferencing type-punned pointer"

I'm trying out OpenCobol with a simple Hello World example.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY "Hello World".
STOP RUN.
I compile with
cobc -x -free -o hello hello.cbl
And get a workable executable, but also a lot of these warnings from gcc
warning: dereferencing type-punned pointer will break strict-aliasing rules [-Wstrict-aliasing]
From a Google search all I can find is that I can apparently just ignore these without ill effect. But for various reasons I'd like to actually get rid of them, if nothing else then at least suppressing them somehow. How can I do this?
Use -O to tone down optimisation.
I would have expected this was being applied to the C Code generation, and not passed through to gcc.
If you prefer absolute control over gcc,
Write a script to wrap your build.
(pass 1) To produce translated C code from cobc.
(pass 2) To compile (with lesser Optimisation) using gcc.
On a large project you can nest scripts for a full build ala make.
Excuse the late note;
For control over the C compiling phase, OpenCOBOL respects a few environment variables during the build chain.
See http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#does-opencobol-work-with-llvm for a list, including COB_CFLAGS and COB_LDFLAGS
From this OpenCobol forum thread it looks like you need to use the -fno-strict-aliasing option. Can't try it here because we don't use OpenCobol.
Somewhere under the covers you are invoking the gcc compiler. Try setting compiler options to turn the warning off as described here
The option should look something like: -Wno-strict

Static library "interface"

Is there any way to tell the compiler (gcc/mingw32) when building an object file (lib*.o) to only expose certain functions from the .c file?
The reason I want to do this is that I am statically linking to a 100,000+ line library (SQLite), but am only using a select few of the functions it offers. I am hoping that if I can tell the compiler to only expose those functions, it will optimize out all the code of the functions that are never needed for those few I selected, thus dratically decreasing the size of the library.
I found several possible solutions:
This is what I asked about. It is the gcc equivalent of Windows' dllexpoort:
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.6.1/gcc/Code-Gen-Options.html (-fvisibility)
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Visibility
I also discovered link-time code-generation. This allows the linker to see what parts of the code are actually used and get rid of the rest. Using this together with strip and -fwhole-program has given me drastically better results.
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.6.1/gcc/Optimize-Options.html (see -flto and -fwhole-program)
Note: This flag only makes sense if you are not compiling the whole program in one call to gcc, which is what I was doing (making a sqlite.o file and then statically linking it in).
The third option which I found but have not yet looked into is mentioned here:
How to remove unused C/C++ symbols with GCC and ld?
That's probably the linkers job, not the compilers. When linking that as a program (.exe), the linker will take care of only importing the relevant symbols, and when linking a DLL, the __dllexport mechanism is probably what you are looking for, or some flags of ld can help you (man ld).

Is there a way to strip all functions from an object file that I am not using?

I am trying to save space in my executable and I noticed that several functions are being added into my object files, even though I never call them (the code is from a library).
Is there a way to tell gcc to remove these functions automatically or do I need to remove them manually?
If you are compiling into object files (not executables), then a compiler will never remove any non-static functions, since it's always possible you will link the object file against another object file that will call that function. So your first step should be declaring as many functions as possible static.
Secondly, the only way for a compiler to remove any unused functions would be to statically link your executable. In that case, there is at least the possibility that a program might come along and figure out what functions are used and which ones are not used.
The catch is, I don't believe that gcc actually does this type of cross-module optimization. Your best bet is the -Os flag to optimize for code size, but even then, if you have an object file abc.o which has some unused non-static functions and you link statically against some executable def.exe, I don't believe that gcc will go and strip out the code for the unused functions.
If you truly desperately need this to be done, I think you might have to actually #include the files together so that after the preprocessor pass, it results in a single .c file being compiled. With gcc compiling a single monstrous jumbo source file, you stand the best chance of unused functions being eliminated.
Have you looked into calling gcc with -Os (optimize for size.) I'm not sure if it strips unreached code, but it would be simple enough to test. You could also, after getting your executable back, 'strip' it. I'm sure there's a gcc command-line arg to do the same thing - is it --dead_strip?
In addition to -Os to optimize for size, this link may be of help.
Since I asked this question, GCC 4.5 was released which includes an option to combine all files so it looks like it is just 1 gigantic source file. Using that option, it is possible to easily strip out the unused functions.
More details here
IIRC the linker by default does what you want ins some specific cases. The short of it is that library files contain a bunch of object files and only referenced files are linked in. If you can figure out how to get GCC to emit each function into it's own object file and then build this into a library you should get what you are looking.
I only know of one compiler that can actually do this: here (look at the -lib flag)

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