<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" version="5.0"
xml:id="manual.intro.setup.configure" xreflabel="Configuring">
<?dbhtml filename="configure.html"?>
<info><title>Configure</title>
<keywordset>
<keyword>ISO C++</keyword>
<keyword>configure</keyword>
<keyword>options</keyword>
</keywordset>
</info>
<para>
When configuring libstdc++, you'll have to configure the entire
<emphasis>gccsrcdir</emphasis> directory. Consider using the
toplevel gcc configuration option
<literal>--enable-languages=c++</literal>, which saves time by only
building the C++ toolchain.
</para>
<para>
Here are all of the configure options specific to libstdc++. Keep
in mind that
<!-- This SECnn should be the "Choosing Package Options" section. -->
<link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://sourceware.org/autobook/autobook/autobook_14.html">they
all have opposite forms as well</link> (enable/disable and
with/without). The defaults are for the <emphasis>current
development sources</emphasis>, which may be different than those
for released versions.
</para>
<para>The canonical way to find out the configure options that are
available for a given set of libstdc++ sources is to go to the
source directory and then type: <command>./configure --help</command>.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-multilib</code>[default]</term>
<listitem><para>This is part of the generic multilib support for building cross
compilers. As such, targets like "powerpc-elf" will have
libstdc++ built many different ways: "-msoft-float"
and not, etc. A different libstdc++ will be built for each of
the different multilib versions. This option is on by default.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-version-specific-runtime-libs</code></term>
<listitem><para>Specify that run-time libraries should be installed in the
compiler-specific subdirectory (i.e.,
<code>${libdir}/gcc-lib/${target_alias}/${gcc_version}</code>)
instead of <code>${libdir}</code>. This option is useful if you
intend to use several versions of gcc in parallel. In addition,
libstdc++'s include files will be installed in
<code>${libdir}/gcc-lib/${target_alias}/${gcc_version}/include/g++</code>,
unless you also specify
<literal>--with-gxx-include-dir=</literal><filename class="directory">dirname</filename> during configuration.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--with-gxx-include-dir=<include-files dir></code></term>
<listitem><para>Adds support for named libstdc++ include directory. For instance,
the following puts all the libstdc++ headers into a directory
called "4.4-20090404" instead of the usual
"c++/(version)".
</para>
<programlisting>
--with-gxx-include-dir=/foo/H-x86-gcc-3-c-gxx-inc/include/4.4-20090404</programlisting> </listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-cstdio</code></term>
<listitem><para>This is an abbreviated form of <code>'--enable-cstdio=stdio'</code>
(described next).
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-cstdio=OPTION</code></term>
<listitem><para>Select a target-specific I/O package. At the moment, the only
choice is to use 'stdio', a generic "C" abstraction.
The default is 'stdio'. This option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-clocale</code></term>
<listitem><para>This is an abbreviated form of <code>'--enable-clocale=generic'</code>
(described next).
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-clocale=OPTION</code></term>
<listitem><para>Select a target-specific underlying locale package. The
choices are 'ieee_1003.1-2001' to specify an X/Open, Standard Unix
(IEEE Std. 1003.1-2001) model based on langinfo/iconv/catgets,
'gnu' to specify a model based on functionality from the GNU C
library (langinfo/iconv/gettext) (from <link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/">glibc</link>, the GNU C
library), 'generic' to use a generic "C" abstraction which consists
of "C" locale info, 'newlib' to specify the Newlib C library model
which only differs from the 'generic' model in the handling of
ctype, or 'darwin' which omits the <type>wchar_t</type> specializations
needed by the 'generic' model.
</para>
<para>If not explicitly specified, the configure process tries
to guess the most suitable package from the choices above. The
default is 'generic'. On glibc-based systems of sufficient
vintage (2.3 and newer), 'gnu' is automatically selected. On newlib-based
systems (<code>'--with_newlib=yes'</code>) and OpenBSD, 'newlib' is
automatically selected. On Mac OS X 'darwin' is automatically selected.
This option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-allocator</code></term>
<listitem><para>This is an abbreviated form of
<code>'--enable-libstdcxx-allocator=auto'</code> (described
next).
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-allocator=OPTION </code></term>
<listitem><para>Select a target-specific underlying std::allocator. The
choices are 'new' to specify a wrapper for new, 'malloc' to
specify a wrapper for malloc, 'mt' for a fixed power of two allocator,
'pool' for the SGI pooled allocator or 'bitmap' for a bitmap allocator.
See this page for more information on allocator
<link linkend="allocator.ext">extensions</link>. This option
can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-cheaders=OPTION</code></term>
<listitem><para>This allows the user to define the approach taken for C header
compatibility with C++. Options are c, c_std, and c_global.
These correspond to the source directory's include/c,
include/c_std, and include/c_global, and may also include
include/c_compatibility. The default is 'c_global'.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-threads</code></term>
<listitem><para>This is an abbreviated form of <code>'--enable-threads=yes'</code>
(described next).
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-threads=OPTION</code></term>
<listitem><para>Select a threading library. A full description is
given in the
general <link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://gcc.gnu.org/install/configure.html">compiler
configuration instructions</link>. This option can change the
library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-threads</code></term>
<listitem><para>Enable C++11 threads support. If not explicitly specified,
the configure process enables it if possible. This
option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-time</code></term>
<listitem><para>This is an abbreviated form of
<code>'--enable-libstdcxx-time=yes'</code>(described next).
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-time=OPTION</code></term>
<listitem><para>Enables link-type checks for the availability of the
<function>clock_gettime</function> clocks, used in the implementation
of [time.clock], and of the <function>nanosleep</function> and
<function>sched_yield</function> functions, used in the
implementation of [thread.thread.this] of the 2011 ISO C++ standard.
The choice OPTION=yes checks for the availability of the facilities
in libc and libposix4. In case it's needed the latter is also linked
to libstdc++ as part of the build process. OPTION=rt also checks in
librt (and, if it's needed, links to it). Note that linking to librt
is not always desirable because for glibc it requires linking to
libpthread too, which causes all reference counting to use atomic
operations, resulting in a potentially large overhead for
single-threaded programs. OPTION=no skips the tests completely.
The default is OPTION=auto, which skips the checks and enables the
features only for targets known to support them.
For Linux targets, if <function>clock_gettime</function> is not used
then the [time.clock] implementation will use a system call to access
the realtime and monotonic clocks, which is significantly slower than
the C library's <function>clock_gettime</function> function.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-debug</code></term>
<listitem><para>Build separate debug libraries in addition to what is normally built.
By default, the debug libraries are compiled with
<code> CXXFLAGS='-g3 -O0 -fno-inline'</code>
, are installed in <code>${libdir}/debug</code>, and have the
same names and versioning information as the non-debug
libraries. This option is off by default.
</para>
<para>Note this make command, executed in
the build directory, will do much the same thing, without the
configuration difference and without building everything twice:
<code>make CXXFLAGS='-g3 -O0 -fno-inline' all</code>
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-debug-flags=FLAGS</code></term>
<listitem><para>This option is only valid when
<code>--enable-libstdcxx-debug</code>
is also specified, and applies to the debug builds only. With
this option, you can pass a specific string of flags to the
compiler to use when building the debug versions of libstdc++.
FLAGS is a quoted string of options, like
</para>
<programlisting>
--enable-libstdcxx-debug-flags='-g3 -O1 -fno-inline'</programlisting>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-cxx-flags=FLAGS</code></term>
<listitem><para>With this option, you can pass a string of -f (functionality)
flags to the compiler to use when building libstdc++. This
option can change the library ABI. FLAGS is a quoted string of
options, like
</para>
<programlisting>
--enable-cxx-flags='-fvtable-gc -fomit-frame-pointer -ansi'</programlisting>
<para>
Note that the flags don't necessarily have to all be -f flags,
as shown, but usually those are the ones that will make sense
for experimentation and configure-time overriding.
</para>
<para>The advantage of --enable-cxx-flags over setting CXXFLAGS in
the 'make' environment is that, if files are automatically
rebuilt, the same flags will be used when compiling those files
as well, so that everything matches.
</para>
<para>Fun flags to try might include combinations of
</para>
<programlisting>
-fstrict-aliasing
-fno-exceptions
-ffunction-sections
-fvtable-gc</programlisting>
<para>and opposite forms (-fno-) of the same. Tell us (the libstdc++
mailing list) if you discover more!
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-c99</code></term>
<listitem><para>The <type>long long</type> type was introduced in C99, along
with many other functions for wide characters, and math
classification macros, etc. If enabled, all C99 functions not
specified by the C++ standard will be put into <code>namespace
__gnu_cxx</code>, and then all these names will
be injected into namespace std, so that C99 functions can be
used "as if" they were in the C++ standard (as they
will eventually be in some future revision of the standard,
without a doubt). By default, C99 support is on, assuming the
configure probes find all the necessary functions and bits
necessary. This option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-wchar_t</code>[default]</term>
<listitem><para>Template specializations for the <type>wchar_t</type> type are
required for wide character conversion support. Disabling
wide character specializations may be expedient for initial
porting efforts, but builds only a subset of what is required by
ISO, and is not recommended. By default, this option is on.
This option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-long-long </code></term>
<listitem><para>The <type>long long</type> type was introduced in C99. It is
provided as a GNU extension to C++98 in g++. This flag builds
support for "long long" into the library (specialized
templates and the like for iostreams). This option is on by default:
if enabled, users will have to either use the new-style "C"
headers by default (i.e., <cmath> not <math.h>)
or add appropriate compile-time flags to all compile lines to
allow "C" visibility of this feature (on GNU/Linux,
the flag is -D_ISOC99_SOURCE, which is added automatically via
CPLUSPLUS_CPP_SPEC's addition of _GNU_SOURCE).
This option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-fully-dynamic-string</code></term>
<listitem><para>This option enables a special version of basic_string avoiding
the optimization that allocates empty objects in static memory.
Mostly useful together with shared memory allocators, see PR
libstdc++/16612 for details.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-concept-checks</code></term>
<listitem><para>This turns on additional compile-time checks for instantiated
library templates, in the form of specialized templates described in
the <link linkend="std.diagnostics.concept_checking">Concept
Checking</link> section. They
can help users discover when they break the rules of the STL, before
their programs run. These checks are based on C++03 rules and some of
them are not compatible with correct C++11 code.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-symvers[=style]</code></term>
<listitem><para>In 3.1 and later, tries to turn on symbol versioning in the
shared library (if a shared library has been
requested). Values for 'style' that are currently supported
are 'gnu', 'gnu-versioned-namespace', 'darwin',
'darwin-export', and 'sun'. Both gnu- options require that a recent
version of the GNU linker be in use. Both darwin options are
equivalent. With no style given, the configure script will try
to guess correct defaults for the host system, probe to see if
additional requirements are necessary and present for
activation, and if so, will turn symbol versioning on. This
option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-visibility</code></term>
<listitem><para> In 4.2 and later, enables or disables visibility
attributes. If enabled (as by default), and the compiler seems
capable of passing the simple sanity checks thrown at it, adjusts
items in namespace std, namespace std::tr1, namespace std::tr2,
and namespace __gnu_cxx to have <code>visibility ("default")</code>
so that -fvisibility options can be used without affecting the
normal external-visibility of namespace std entities.
Prior to 4.7 this option was spelled <code>--enable-visibility</code>.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-pch</code></term>
<listitem><para>In 3.4 and later, tries to turn on the generation of
stdc++.h.gch, a pre-compiled file including all the standard
C++ includes. If enabled (as by default), and the compiler
seems capable of passing the simple sanity checks thrown at
it, try to build stdc++.h.gch as part of the make process.
In addition, this generated file is used later on (by appending <code>
--include bits/stdc++.h </code> to CXXFLAGS) when running the
testsuite.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-extern-template</code>[default]</term>
<listitem><para>Use extern template to pre-instantiate all required
specializations for certain types defined in the standard libraries.
These types include <classname>string</classname> and dependents like
<classname>char_traits</classname>, the templatized IO classes,
<classname>allocator</classname>, and others.
Disabling means that implicit
template generation will be used when compiling these types. By
default, this option is on. This option can change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--disable-hosted-libstdcxx</code></term>
<listitem>
<para>
By default, a complete <emphasis>hosted</emphasis> C++ library is
built. The C++ Standard also describes a
<emphasis>freestanding</emphasis> environment, in which only a
minimal set of headers are provided. This option builds such an
environment.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--disable-libstdcxx-verbose</code></term>
<listitem>
<para>
By default, the library is configured to write descriptive messages
to standard error for certain events such as calling a pure virtual
function or the invocation of the standard terminate handler. Those
messages cause the library to depend on the demangler and standard I/O
facilities, which might be undesirable in a low-memory environment or
when standard error is not available. This option disables those
messages. This option does not change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--disable-libstdcxx-dual-abi</code></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Disable support for the new, C++11-conforming implementations of
<code>std::string</code>, <code>std::list</code> etc. so that the
library only provides definitions of types using the old ABI
(see <xref linkend="manual.intro.using.abi"/>).
This option changes the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--with-default-libstdcxx-abi=</code><replaceable>OPTION</replaceable></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Set the default value for the <symbol>_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI</symbol>
macro (see <xref linkend="manual.intro.using.macros"/>).
The default is <option>OPTION=new</option> which sets the macro to
<literal>1</literal>,
use <option>OPTION=gcc4-compatible</option> to set it to
<literal>0</literal>.
This option does not change the library ABI.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--with-libstdcxx-lock-policy=OPTION</code></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the lock policy that controls how
<classname>shared_ptr</classname> reference counting is
synchronized.
The choice OPTION=atomic enables use of atomics for updates to
<classname>shared_ptr</classname> reference counts.
The choice OPTION=mutex enables use of a mutex to synchronize updates
to <classname>shared_ptr</classname> reference counts.
If the compiler's thread model is "single" then this option has no
effect, as no synchronization is used for the reference counts.
The default is OPTION=auto, which checks for the availability of
compiler built-ins for 2-byte and 4-byte atomic compare-and-swap,
and uses OPTION=atomic if they're available, OPTION=mutex otherwise.
This option can change the library ABI.
If the library is configured to use atomics and user programs are
compiled using a target that doesn't natively support the atomic
operations (e.g. the library is configured for armv7 and then code
is compiled with <option>-march=armv5t</option>) then the program
might rely on support in libgcc to provide the atomics.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-vtable-verify</code>[default]</term>
<listitem>
<para>Use <code>-fvtable-verify=std</code> to compile the C++
runtime with instrumentation for vtable verification. All virtual
functions in the standard library will be verified at runtime.
Types impacted include <classname>locale</classname> and
<classname>iostream</classname>, and others. Disabling means that
the C++ runtime is compiled without support for vtable
verification. By default, this option is off.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term><code>--enable-libstdcxx-filesystem-ts</code>[default]</term>
<listitem>
<para>Build <filename class="libraryfile">libstdc++fs.a</filename> as well
as the usual libstdc++ and libsupc++ libraries. This is enabled by
default on select POSIX targets where it is known to work and disabled
otherwise.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</section>