I do not intend to start a flamewar, but the post below contains numerous factually wrong, incomplete, misleading and uninformed statements. It is of great disservice to provide erroneous information, and that in response to a mailing list request for accurate information about a specific topic. Not only it confuses the original question, but it also diminishes the value of the mailing list. I also realise that this is a Boost mailing list, and it is not a Sun compiler complaints list. I will correct the following false assertions: - Apache Standard C++ Library 4.2.1 [ libstdcxx ] is already included and available in Solaris/Nevada. Sun Studio 12 provides support for the Apache Library. How do I know that libstdcxx is available in Solaris/Nevada ? Because I put it there. It is, therefore, not true, that Sun has not given any indication about the availability of the Apache Library: it is already available. - Sun does not have to wait until C++0x is ratified in order to provide libstdcxx, simply because libstdcxx does not yet support C++0x. There may exist, in the future, an implementation of the Apache Standard C++ Library, providing C++0x. It does not yet exist. - It is already known that the C++ ABI will break for C++0x. - GCCFSS has nothing to do with C++, or, for that matter, with C, or with std::locale. GCCFSS is simply a compiler backend optimizer for the SPARC ISA exclusively. - The stlport4 library available on Solaris has nothing to do with GCC. It is only provided for, and supported with, Sun Studio. GCC provides its own implementation of the Standard C++ Library, namely libstdc++. The implementation of the GNU Standard C++ Library has nothing to do with either GCCFSS, or with the Solaris-provided stlport4 library. Thank you for your time. --Stefan ------ On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 15:12, Rob Riggs <rob@pangalactic.org> wrote:
C++ on Solaris is a bit of a lost cause at the moment. The near-term route that we have decided to take is to abandon Sun Studio altogether and focus on porting to GCC on Solaris using the GCC package from Blastwave. I encourage others to consider doing the same.
The issue that you will run into with both Sun Studio & stlport and with GCC is that neither has working locale support on Solaris. This is not an immediate issue for us so it was a reasonable compromise. My understanding is that locale support should be working in the near future with "regular" GCC on Solaris using the --enable-clocale=ieee_1003.1-2001 option.
Longer term, we do not think Sun Studio is a viable platform for C++ development. In the near future Sun will have to support Sun Studio with 3 C++ standard libraries as they have stated publicly that they will be adding Apache's libstdcxx (but not when). This is an untenable position for third-party library developers (whether open or proprietary). None of the three libraries are binary compatible, so every third-party library one uses must be compiled with the same library. Additionally, Sun will either have to wait to include the Apache libstdcxx until c++1x is ratified and their compiler & library supports all its features or it will have to support a 4th C++ standard library. However, given Sun's history with C++ support, the option they are most likely to choose is to have a broken C++ implementation that doesn't support all of c++1x for the next decade.
GCCfss from Sun is another alternative, but it appears to be at a crossroads with GCC's recent license change. Sun can no longer modify GCC to produce IL code for their compiler back-end without also releasing those tools under the GPL. Last I checked, this did have working locale support. This is really the only working C++ implementation on Solaris at this point. But its lifespan appears to be rather limited.
Rob
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