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Difference between CC, gcc and g++?

Asked 2009-10-04T14:55:24.187
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What are the difference between the 3 compilers CC, gcc, g++ when compiling C and C++ code in terms of assembly code generation, available libraries, language features, etc.?

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The answer to this is platform-specific; what happens on Linux is different from what happens on Solaris, for example.

The easy part (because it is not platform-specific) is the separation of 'gcc' and 'g++':

  • gcc is the GNU C Compiler from the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection).
  • g++ is the GNU C++ Compiler from the GCC.

The hard part, because it is platform-specific, is the meaning of 'CC' (and 'cc').

  • On Solaris, CC is normally the name of the Sun C++ compiler.
  • On Solaris, cc is normally the name of the Sun C compiler.
  • On Linux, if it exists, CC is probably a link to g++.
  • On Linux, cc is a link to gcc.

However, even on Solaris, it could be that cc is the old BSD-based C compiler from /usr/ucb. In practice, that usually isn't installed and there's just a stub that fails, wreaking havoc on those who try to compile and install self-configuring software.

On HP-UX, the default 'cc' is still a K&R-only C compiler installed to permit relinking of the kernel when necessary, and unusable for modern software work because it doesn't support standard C. You have to use alternative compiler names ('acc' IIRC). Similarly, on AIX, the system C compiler goes by names such as 'xlc' or 'xlc32'.

Classically, the default system compiler was called 'cc' and self-configuring software falls back on that name when it doesn't know what else to use.

POSIX attempted to legislate its way around this by requiring the programs answered 2009-10-04T15:24:07.967

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