source: appendixa/gcc-desc.xml@ c4d0c84

<sect2><title>Contents of GCC</title>

<para>Last checked against version &gcc-contversion;.</para>

<sect3><title>Program Files</title>
<para>c++, c++filt, cc (link to gcc), cc1, cc1plus, collect2, cpp, cpp0,
g++, gcc, gccbug, gcov and tradcpp0</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>cc, cc1, cc1plus, gcc</title>
<para>These are the C compiler.  A compiler translates source code in
text format to a format that a computer understands. After a source code 
file is compiled into an object file, a linker will create an executable 
file from one or more of these compiler generated object files.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>c++, cc1plus, g++</title>
<para>These are the C++ compiler; the equivalent of cc and 
gcc etc.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>c++filt</title>
<para>The C++ language provides function overloading, which means that it is
possible to write many functions with the same name (providing each takes
parameters of different types).  All C++ function names are encoded into
a low-level assembly label (this process is known as mangling). The c++filt
program does the inverse mapping: it decodes (demangles) low-level names
into user-level names so that the linker can keep these overloaded functions
from clashing.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>collect2</title>
<para>collect2 assists with the compilation of constructors.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>cpp, cpp0</title>
<para>cpp pre-processes a source file, such as including
the contents of header files into the source file. It's a good idea to
not do this manually to save a lot of time. Someone just inserts a line
like #include &lt;filename&gt;. The preprocessor inserts the
contents of that file into the source file. That's one of the things a
preprocessor does.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>gccbug</title>
<para>gccbug is a shell script which is used to simplify the creation of
bug reports.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>gcov</title>
<para>gcov analyzes programs to help create more efficient, faster running
code through optimization.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>tradcpp0</title>
<para>No description is currently available.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

<sect3><title>Library Files</title>
<para>libgcc.a, libgcc_eh.a, libgcc_s.so, libiberty.a, libstdc++.[a,so], 
libsupc++.a</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>libgcc, libgcc_eh, libgcc_s</title>
<para>Run-time support files for gcc.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>libiberty</title>
<para>libiberty is a collection of subroutines used by various GNU
programs including getopt, obstack, strerror, strtol and strtoul.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>libstdc++</title>
<para>libstdc++ is the C++ library.  It is used by C++ programs and contains
functions that are frequently used in C++ programs. This way the
programmer doesn't have to write certain functions (such as writing a
string of text to the screen) from scratch every time he creates a
program.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>libsupc++</title>
<para>libsup++ provides support for the c++ programming language. Among other
things, libsup++ contains routines for exception handling.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

</sect2>