This section describes the command-line options that are only meaningful for C++ programs. You can also use most of the GNU compiler options regardless of what language your program is in. For example, you might compile a file firstClass.C
like this:
g++ -g -frepo -O -c firstClass.C
In this example, only -frepo
is an option meant only for C++ programs; you can use the other options with any language supported by GCC.
Here is a list of options that are only for compiling C++ programs:
-fabi-version=
n
Version 0 refers to the version conforming most closely to the C++ ABI specification. Therefore, the ABI obtained using version 0 will change in different versions of G++ as ABI bugs are fixed.
Version 1 is the version of the C++ ABI that first appeared in G++ 3.2.
Version 2 is the version of the C++ ABI that first appeared in G++ 3.4, and was the default through G++ 4.9.
Version 3 corrects an error in mangling a constant address as a template argument.
Version 4, which first appeared in G++ 4.5, implements a standard mangling for vector types.
Version 5, which first appeared in G++ 4.6, corrects the mangling of attribute const/volatile on function pointer types, decltype of a plain decl, and use of a function parameter in the declaration of another parameter.
Version 6, which first appeared in G++ 4.7, corrects the promotion behavior of C++11 scoped enums and the mangling of template argument packs, const/static_cast, prefix ++ and –, and a class scope function used as a template argument.
Version 7, which first appeared in G++ 4.8, that treats nullptr_t as a builtin type and corrects the mangling of lambdas in default argument scope.
Version 8, which first appeared in G++ 4.9, corrects the substitution behavior of function types with function-cv-qualifiers.
Version 9, which first appeared in G++ 5.2, corrects the alignment of nullptr_t
.
See also -Wabi
.
-fabi-compat-version=
n
With -fabi-version=0
(the default), this defaults to 2. If another ABI version is explicitly selected, this defaults to 0.
The compatibility version is also set by -Wabi=n.
-fno-access-control
-fcheck-new
operator new
is non-null before attempting to modify the storage allocated. This check is normally unnecessary because the C++ standard specifies that operator new
only returns 0
if it is declared throw()
, in which case the compiler always checks the return value even without this option. In all other cases, when operator new
has a non-empty exception specification, memory exhaustion is signalled by throwing std::bad_alloc
. See also ‘new (nothrow)
’. -fconstexpr-depth=
n
-fdeduce-init-list
std::initializer_list
from a brace-enclosed initializer list, i.e. template <class T> auto forward(T t) -> decltype (realfn (t)) { return realfn (t); } void f() { forward({1,2}); // call forward<std::initializer_list<int>> }
This deduction was implemented as a possible extension to the originally proposed semantics for the C++11 standard, but was not part of the final standard, so it is disabled by default. This option is deprecated, and may be removed in a future version of G++.
-ffriend-injection
This option is for compatibility, and may be removed in a future release of G++.
-fno-elide-constructors
-fno-enforce-eh-specs
NDEBUG
. This does not give user code permission to throw exceptions in violation of the exception specifications; the compiler still optimizes based on the specifications, so throwing an unexpected exception results in undefined behavior at run time. -fextern-tls-init
-fno-extern-tls-init
thread_local
and threadprivate
variables to have dynamic (runtime) initialization. To support this, any use of such a variable goes through a wrapper function that performs any necessary initialization. When the use and definition of the variable are in the same translation unit, this overhead can be optimized away, but when the use is in a different translation unit there is significant overhead even if the variable doesn't actually need dynamic initialization. If the programmer can be sure that no use of the variable in a non-defining TU needs to trigger dynamic initialization (either because the variable is statically initialized, or a use of the variable in the defining TU will be executed before any uses in another TU), they can avoid this overhead with the -fno-extern-tls-init
option. On targets that support symbol aliases, the default is -fextern-tls-init
. On targets that do not support symbol aliases, the default is -fno-extern-tls-init
.
-ffor-scope
-fno-for-scope
-ffor-scope
is specified, the scope of variables declared in a for-init-statement is limited to the for
loop itself, as specified by the C++ standard. If -fno-for-scope
is specified, the scope of variables declared in a for-init-statement extends to the end of the enclosing scope, as was the case in old versions of G++, and other (traditional) implementations of C++. If neither flag is given, the default is to follow the standard, but to allow and give a warning for old-style code that would otherwise be invalid, or have different behavior.
-fno-gnu-keywords
typeof
as a keyword, so that code can use this word as an identifier. You can use the keyword __typeof__
instead. -ansi
implies -fno-gnu-keywords
. -fno-implicit-templates
-fno-implicit-inline-templates
-fno-implement-inlines
#pragma implementation
. This causes linker errors if these functions are not inlined everywhere they are called. -fms-extensions
-fno-nonansi-builtins
ffs
, alloca
, _exit
, index
, bzero
, conjf
, and other related functions. -fnothrow-opt
throw()
exception specification as if it were a noexcept
specification to reduce or eliminate the text size overhead relative to a function with no exception specification. If the function has local variables of types with non-trivial destructors, the exception specification actually makes the function smaller because the EH cleanups for those variables can be optimized away. The semantic effect is that an exception thrown out of a function with such an exception specification results in a call to terminate
rather than unexpected
. -fno-operator-names
and
, bitand
, bitor
, compl
, not
, or
and xor
as synonyms as keywords. -fno-optional-diags
-fpermissive
-fpermissive
allows some nonconforming code to compile. -fno-pretty-templates
void f(T) [with T = int]
rather than void f(int)
) so that it's clear which template is involved. When an error message refers to a specialization of a class template, the compiler omits any template arguments that match the default template arguments for that template. If either of these behaviors make it harder to understand the error message rather than easier, you can use -fno-pretty-templates
to disable them. -frepo
-fno-implicit-templates
. See Template Instantiation, for more information. -fno-rtti
dynamic_cast
and typeid
). If you don't use those parts of the language, you can save some space by using this flag. Note that exception handling uses the same information, but G++ generates it as needed. The dynamic_cast
operator can still be used for casts that do not require run-time type information, i.e. casts to void *
or to unambiguous base classes. -fsized-deallocation
void operator delete (void *, std::size_t) noexcept; void operator delete[] (void *, std::size_t) noexcept;
as introduced in C++14. This is useful for user-defined replacement deallocation functions that, for example, use the size of the object to make deallocation faster. Enabled by default under -std=c++14
and above. The flag -Wsized-deallocation
warns about places that might want to add a definition.
-fstats
-fstrict-enums
-ftemplate-backtrace-limit=
n
-ftemplate-depth=
n
-fno-threadsafe-statics
-fuse-cxa-atexit
__cxa_atexit
function rather than the atexit
function. This option is required for fully standards-compliant handling of static destructors, but only works if your C library supports __cxa_atexit
. -fno-use-cxa-get-exception-ptr
__cxa_get_exception_ptr
runtime routine. This causes std::uncaught_exception
to be incorrect, but is necessary if the runtime routine is not available. -fvisibility-inlines-hidden
The effect of this is that GCC may, effectively, mark inline methods with __attribute__ ((visibility ("hidden")))
so that they do not appear in the export table of a DSO and do not require a PLT indirection when used within the DSO. Enabling this option can have a dramatic effect on load and link times of a DSO as it massively reduces the size of the dynamic export table when the library makes heavy use of templates.
The behavior of this switch is not quite the same as marking the methods as hidden directly, because it does not affect static variables local to the function or cause the compiler to deduce that the function is defined in only one shared object.
You may mark a method as having a visibility explicitly to negate the effect of the switch for that method. For example, if you do want to compare pointers to a particular inline method, you might mark it as having default visibility. Marking the enclosing class with explicit visibility has no effect.
Explicitly instantiated inline methods are unaffected by this option as their linkage might otherwise cross a shared library boundary. See Template Instantiation.
-fvisibility-ms-compat
The flag makes these changes to GCC's linkage model:
hidden
, like -fvisibility=hidden
. In new code it is better to use -fvisibility=hidden
and export those classes that are intended to be externally visible. Unfortunately it is possible for code to rely, perhaps accidentally, on the Visual Studio behavior.
Among the consequences of these changes are that static data members of the same type with the same name but defined in different shared objects are different, so changing one does not change the other; and that pointers to function members defined in different shared objects may not compare equal. When this flag is given, it is a violation of the ODR to define types with the same name differently.
-fvtable-verify=
[std
|preinit
|none
]
-fvtable-verify=none
) the security feature that verifies at run time, for every virtual call, that the vtable pointer through which the call is made is valid for the type of the object, and has not been corrupted or overwritten. If an invalid vtable pointer is detected at run time, an error is reported and execution of the program is immediately halted. This option causes run-time data structures to be built at program startup, which are used for verifying the vtable pointers. The options ‘std
’ and ‘preinit
’ control the timing of when these data structures are built. In both cases the data structures are built before execution reaches main
. Using -fvtable-verify=std
causes the data structures to be built after shared libraries have been loaded and initialized. -fvtable-verify=preinit
causes them to be built before shared libraries have been loaded and initialized.
If this option appears multiple times in the command line with different values specified, ‘none
’ takes highest priority over both ‘std
’ and ‘preinit
’; ‘preinit
’ takes priority over ‘std
’.
-fvtv-debug
-fvtable-verify=std
or -fvtable-verify=preinit
, causes debug versions of the runtime functions for the vtable verification feature to be called. This flag also causes the compiler to log information about which vtable pointers it finds for each class. This information is written to a file named vtv_set_ptr_data.log
in the directory named by the environment variable VTV_LOGS_DIR
if that is defined or the current working directory otherwise. Note: This feature appends data to the log file. If you want a fresh log file, be sure to delete any existing one.
-fvtv-counts
-fvtable-verify=std
or -fvtable-verify=preinit
, this causes the compiler to keep track of the total number of virtual calls it encounters and the number of verifications it inserts. It also counts the number of calls to certain run-time library functions that it inserts and logs this information for each compilation unit. The compiler writes this information to a file named vtv_count_data.log
in the directory named by the environment variable VTV_LOGS_DIR
if that is defined or the current working directory otherwise. It also counts the size of the vtable pointer sets for each class, and writes this information to vtv_class_set_sizes.log
in the same directory. Note: This feature appends data to the log files. To get fresh log files, be sure to delete any existing ones.
-fno-weak
-nostdinc++
In addition, these optimization, warning, and code generation options have meanings only for C++ programs:
-Wabi
(C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ only)
-fabi-version=0
, -Wabi
has no effect unless either an older ABI version is selected (with -fabi-version=n) or an older compatibility version is selected (with -Wabi=n or -fabi-compat-version=n). Although an effort has been made to warn about all such cases, there are probably some cases that are not warned about, even though G++ is generating incompatible code. There may also be cases where warnings are emitted even though the code that is generated is compatible.
You should rewrite your code to avoid these warnings if you are concerned about the fact that code generated by G++ may not be binary compatible with code generated by other compilers.
-Wabi
can also be used with an explicit version number to warn about compatibility with a particular -fabi-version
level, e.g. -Wabi=2
to warn about changes relative to -fabi-version=2
. Specifying a version number also sets -fabi-compat-version=n.
The known incompatibilities in -fabi-version=2
(which was the default from GCC 3.4 to 4.9) include:
extern int N; template <int &> struct S {}; void n (S<N>) {2}
This was fixed in -fabi-version=3
.
__attribute ((vector_size))
were mangled in a non-standard way that does not allow for overloading of functions taking vectors of different sizes. The mangling was changed in -fabi-version=4
.
__attribute ((const))
and noreturn
were mangled as type qualifiers, and decltype
of a plain declaration was folded away. These mangling issues were fixed in -fabi-version=5
.
va_arg
to complain. On most targets this does not actually affect the parameter passing ABI, as there is no way to pass an argument smaller than int
. Also, the ABI changed the mangling of template argument packs, const_cast
, static_cast
, prefix increment/decrement, and a class scope function used as a template argument.
These issues were corrected in -fabi-version=6
.
nullptr_t
. These issues were corrected in -fabi-version=7
.
This was fixed in -fabi-version=8
, the default for GCC 5.1.
decltype(nullptr)
incorrectly had an alignment of 1, leading to unaligned accesses. Note that this did not affect the ABI of a function with a nullptr_t
parameter, as parameters have a minimum alignment. This was fixed in -fabi-version=9
, the default for GCC 5.2.
It also warns about psABI-related changes. The known psABI changes at this point include:
long double
members are passed in memory as specified in psABI. For example: union U { long double ld; int i; };
union U
is always passed in memory.
-Wabi-tag
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
-Wctor-dtor-privacy
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
-Wdelete-non-virtual-dtor
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
delete
is used to destroy an instance of a class that has virtual functions and non-virtual destructor. It is unsafe to delete an instance of a derived class through a pointer to a base class if the base class does not have a virtual destructor. This warning is enabled by -Wall
. -Wliteral-suffix
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
<inttypes.h>
. For example: #define __STDC_FORMAT_MACROS #include <inttypes.h> #include <stdio.h> int main() { int64_t i64 = 123; printf("My int64: %"PRId64"\n", i64); }
In this case, PRId64
is treated as a separate preprocessing token.
This warning is enabled by default.
-Wnarrowing
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
{ }
’, e.g. int i = { 2.2 }; // error: narrowing from double to int
This flag is included in -Wall
and -Wc++11-compat
.
With -std=c++11
, -Wno-narrowing
suppresses the diagnostic required by the standard. Note that this does not affect the meaning of well-formed code; narrowing conversions are still considered ill-formed in SFINAE context.
-Wnoexcept
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
throw()
or noexcept
) but is known by the compiler to never throw an exception. -Wnon-virtual-dtor
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
-Weffc++
is specified. -Wreorder
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
struct A { int i; int j; A(): j (0), i (1) { } };
The compiler rearranges the member initializers for i
and j
to match the declaration order of the members, emitting a warning to that effect. This warning is enabled by -Wall
.
-fext-numeric-literals
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
-std=c++98
, -std=gnu++98
, -std=gnu++11
, -std=gnu++14
. This option is off by default for ISO C++11 onwards (-std=c++11
, ...). The following -W...
options are not affected by -Wall
.
-Weffc++
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
operator=
return a reference to *this
. &&
, ||
, or ,
. This option also enables -Wnon-virtual-dtor
, which is also one of the effective C++ recommendations. However, the check is extended to warn about the lack of virtual destructor in accessible non-polymorphic bases classes too.
When selecting this option, be aware that the standard library headers do not obey all of these guidelines; use ‘grep -v
’ to filter out those warnings.
-Wstrict-null-sentinel
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
NULL
as sentinel. When compiling only with GCC this is a valid sentinel, as NULL
is defined to __null
. Although it is a null pointer constant rather than a null pointer, it is guaranteed to be of the same size as a pointer. But this use is not portable across different compilers. -Wno-non-template-friend
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
friend foo(int)
’), the C++ language specification demands that the friend declare or define an ordinary, nontemplate function. (Section 14.5.3). Before G++ implemented explicit specification, unqualified-ids could be interpreted as a particular specialization of a templatized function. Because this non-conforming behavior is no longer the default behavior for G++, -Wnon-template-friend
allows the compiler to check existing code for potential trouble spots and is on by default. This new compiler behavior can be turned off with -Wno-non-template-friend
, which keeps the conformant compiler code but disables the helpful warning. -Wold-style-cast
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
dynamic_cast
, static_cast
, reinterpret_cast
, and const_cast
) are less vulnerable to unintended effects and much easier to search for. -Woverloaded-virtual
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
struct A { virtual void f(); }; struct B: public A { void f(int); };
the A
class version of f
is hidden in B
, and code like:
B* b; b->f();
fails to compile.
-Wno-pmf-conversions
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
-Wsign-promo
(C++ and Objective-C++ only)
© Free Software Foundation
Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3.
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-5.4.0/gcc/C_002b_002b-Dialect-Options.html