Bug#431014: Why won't you ship /usr/bin/gcc-snapshot?

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Vincent Lefevre wrote:

> At runtime? Do you mean that one needs to change the library path
> also for running the generated executable?

Yes, gcc-snapshot includes a snapshot of libgcc (and libstdc++,
libgcj, libobjc, etc).  So checking those libraries' behavior involves
modifying the library path at runtime.

>From time to time the ABI can be bumped, which means the dependencies
of generated executables need not always be satisfied by the ordinary
copies of those libraries in /lib.

> The README.Debian file
> doesn't say anything like that. According to the README.Debian
> file, the wrapper is just what we need.

Good catch, thanks.  Can you suggest an improved wording?

[...]
> BTW, is there any reason why gcc-snapshot needs the library path
> to be changed explicitly (to run the compiler) while this is not
> needed for gcc-4.4, gcc-4.5, etc.?

The libraries in gcc-snapshot are private libraries, not meant to
conflict with the libgcc1 et al packages nor to be used by ordinary
programs like /bin/ls except when the user requests so by setting
LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Cheers,
Jonathan