allow linking with other implementations

• Key: STDCXX-1
• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Martin Sebor
• Component/s: Configuration
• Affects Version/s: 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.1.4
• Fix Version/s: 4.3.0

Description

This is an enhancement request to allow object files (libraries, or executable programs) compiled against this implementation of the C++ Standard Library to link with others compiled against another implementation (such as GNU libstdc++ or STLport).

Comments

[Lance Diduck]

This is a paper I wrote a couple years ago at my last job outlining some of the more conceptual reasons that motivate this issue http://www.lancediduck.com/papers/Linker/Resolving%20Link%20Issues%20in%20C.htm

This problem is only getting worse – for example, at my current job we routinely try to link an "improved" version of STLport, Xerces 2.5 and 2.6, log4cxx, some version of ACE, and a couple of other things I've never heard of, all together in one huge makefile. Of course no one thinks this is a good idea. But "changing the build" is out of the question – and even in a sane scenario, many vendors dictate the build options.

Enabling all or portions of STDCXX code, to sit on top of whatever the current STL happens to be, would be a huge deal. This would allow tons of developers to rely on STDCXX without having to get everybody to coordinate on a single set of build options, or without having to lobby an entire company (indeed the industry ) to do things your way.

[Martin Sebor]

Added 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 to affected versions and scheduled for 4.3 (it's too big for a patch release like 4.2.1).

[Martin Sebor]

I don't see how this could be done in a binary compatible way. To link with another implementation of the C++ Standard Library without running into conflicts we'd need to change the names of all the symbols that we could conflict with, i.e., everything we define out-of-line in namespace std, which is all of iostreams, locale, and strings. So I can't imagine how this could be done in 4.3.