x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-11 (1) Linux Manual Page

gcc – GNU project C and C++ compiler

Synopsis

gcc [-c|-S|-E] [-std=standard]
    [-g] [-pg] [-Olevel]
    [-Wwarn…] [-Wpedantic]
    [-Idir…] [-Ldir…]
    [-Dmacro[=defn]…] [-Umacro]
    [-foption…] [-mmachine-option…]
    [-o outfile] [@file] infile…

Only the most useful options are listed here; see below for the remainder. g++ accepts mostly the same options as gcc.

Description

When you invoke GCC, it normally does preprocessing, compilation, assembly and linking. The “overall options” allow you to stop this process at an intermediate stage. For example, the -c option says not to run the linker. Then the output consists of object files output by the assembler.

Other options are passed on to one or more stages of processing. Some options control the preprocessor and others the compiler itself. Yet other options control the assembler and linker; most of these are not documented here, since you rarely need to use any of them.

Most of the command-line options that you can use with GCC are useful for C programs; when an option is only useful with another language (usually C++), the explanation says so explicitly. If the description for a particular option does not mention a source language, you can use that option with all supported languages.

The usual way to run GCC is to run the executable called gcc, or machine-gcc when cross-compiling, or machine-gcc-version to run a specific version of GCC. When you compile C++ programs, you should invoke GCC as g++ instead.

The gcc program accepts options and file names as operands. Many options have multi-letter names; therefore multiple single-letter options may not be grouped: -dv is very different from -d -v.

You can mix options and other arguments. For the most part, the order you use doesn’t matter. Order does matter when you use several options of the same kind; for example, if you specify -L more than once, the directories are searched in the order specified. Also, the placement of the -l option is significant.

Many options have long names starting with -f or with -W—for example, -fmove-loop-invariants, -Wformat and so on. Most of these have both positive and negative forms; the negative form of -ffoo is -fno-foo. This manual documents only one of these two forms, whichever one is not the default.

Some options take one or more arguments typically separated either by a space or by the equals sign (=) from the option name. Unless documented otherwise, an argument can be either numeric or a string. Numeric arguments must typically be small unsigned decimal or hexadecimal integers. Hexadecimal arguments must begin with the 0x prefix. Arguments to options that specify a size threshold of some sort may be arbitrarily large decimal or hexadecimal integers followed by a byte size suffix designating a multiple of bytes such as "kB" and "KiB" for kilobyte and kibibyte, respectively, "MB" and "MiB" for megabyte and mebibyte, "GB" and "GiB" for gigabyte and gigibyte, and so on. Such arguments are designated by byte-size in the following text. Refer to the NIST, IEC, and other relevant national and international standards for the full listing and explanation of the binary and decimal byte size prefixes.

Options

Option Summary

Here is a summary of all the options, grouped by type. Explanations are in the following sections.

Overall Options

-c -S -E -o file -dumpbase dumpbase -dumpbase-ext auxdropsuf -dumpdir dumppfx -x language -v -### –help[=class[,…]] –target-help –version -pass-exit-codes -pipe -specs=file -wrapper @file -ffile-prefix-map=old=new -fplugin=file -fplugin-arg-name=arg -fdump-ada-spec[-slim] -fada-spec-parent=unit -fdump-go-spec=file

C Language Options

-ansi -std=standard -fgnu89-inline -fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=standard -aux-info filename -fallow-parameterless-variadic-functions -fno-asm -fno-builtin -fno-builtin-function -fgimple -fhosted -ffreestanding -fopenacc -fopenacc-dim=geom -fopenmp -fopenmp-simd -fms-extensions -fplan9-extensions -fsso-struct=endianness -fallow-single-precision -fcond-mismatch -flax-vector-conversions -fsigned-bitfields -fsigned-char -funsigned-bitfields -funsigned-char

C++ Language Options

-fabi-version=n -fno-access-control -faligned-new=n -fargs-in-order=n -fchar8_t -fcheck-new -fconstexpr-depth=n -fconstexpr-cache-depth=n -fconstexpr-loop-limit=n -fconstexpr-ops-limit=n -fno-elide-constructors -fno-enforce-eh-specs -fno-gnu-keywords -fno-implicit-templates -fno-implicit-inline-templates -fno-implement-inlines -fmodule-header[=kind] -fmodule-only -fmodules-ts -fmodule-implicit-inline -fno-module-lazy -fmodule-mapper=specification -fmodule-version-ignore -fms-extensions -fnew-inheriting-ctors -fnew-ttp-matching -fno-nonansi-builtins -fnothrow-opt -fno-operator-names -fno-optional-diags -fpermissive -fno-pretty-templates -fno-rtti -fsized-deallocation -ftemplate-backtrace-limit=n -ftemplate-depth=n -fno-threadsafe-statics -fuse-cxa-atexit -fno-weak -nostdinc++ -fvisibility-inlines-hidden -fvisibility-ms-compat -fext-numeric-literals -flang-info-include-translate[=header] -flang-info-include-translate-not -flang-info-module-cmi[=module] -stdlib=libstdc++,libc++ -Wabi-tag -Wcatch-value -Wcatch-value=n -Wno-class-conversion -Wclass-memaccess -Wcomma-subscript -Wconditionally-supported -Wno-conversion-null -Wctad-maybe-unsupported -Wctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-delete-incomplete -Wdelete-non-virtual-dtor -Wdeprecated-copy -Wdeprecated-copy-dtor -Wno-deprecated-enum-enum-conversion -Wno-deprecated-enum-float-conversion -Weffc++ -Wno-exceptions -Wextra-semi -Wno-inaccessible-base -Wno-inherited-variadic-ctor -Wno-init-list-lifetime -Winvalid-imported-macros -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-literal-suffix -Wno-mismatched-new-delete -Wmismatched-tags -Wmultiple-inheritance -Wnamespaces -Wnarrowing -Wnoexcept -Wnoexcept-type -Wnon-virtual-dtor -Wpessimizing-move -Wno-placement-new -Wplacement-new=n -Wrange-loop-construct -Wredundant-move -Wredundant-tags -Wreorder -Wregister -Wstrict-null-sentinel -Wno-subobject-linkage -Wtemplates -Wno-non-template-friend -Wold-style-cast -Woverloaded-virtual -Wno-pmf-conversions -Wsign-promo -Wsized-deallocation -Wsuggest-final-methods -Wsuggest-final-types -Wsuggest-override -Wno-terminate -Wuseless-cast -Wno-vexing-parse -Wvirtual-inheritance -Wno-virtual-move-assign -Wvolatile -Wzero-as-null-pointer-constant

Objective-C and Objective-C++ Language Options

-fconstant-string-class=class-name -fgnu-runtime -fnext-runtime -fno-nil-receivers -fobjc-abi-version=n -fobjc-call-cxx-cdtors -fobjc-direct-dispatch -fobjc-exceptions -fobjc-gc -fobjc-nilcheck -fobjc-std=objc1 -fno-local-ivars -fivar-visibility=[public|protected|private|package] -freplace-objc-classes -fzero-link -gen-decls -Wassign-intercept -Wno-property-assign-default -Wno-protocol -Wobjc-root-class -Wselector -Wstrict-selector-match -Wundeclared-selector

Diagnostic Message Formatting Options

-fmessage-length=n -fdiagnostics-plain-output -fdiagnostics-show-location=[once|every-line] -fdiagnostics-color=[auto|never|always] -fdiagnostics-urls=[auto|never|always] -fdiagnostics-format=[text|json] -fno-diagnostics-show-option -fno-diagnostics-show-caret -fno-diagnostics-show-labels -fno-diagnostics-show-line-numbers -fno-diagnostics-show-cwe -fdiagnostics-minimum-margin-width=width -fdiagnostics-parseable-fixits -fdiagnostics-generate-patch -fdiagnostics-show-template-tree -fno-elide-type -fdiagnostics-path-format=[none|separate-events|inline-events] -fdiagnostics-show-path-depths -fno-show-column -fdiagnostics-column-unit=[display|byte] -fdiagnostics-column-origin=origin

Warning Options

-fsyntax-only -fmax-errors=n -Wpedantic -pedantic-errors -w -Wextra -Wall -Wabi=n -Waddress -Wno-address-of-packed-member -Waggregate-return -Walloc-size-larger-than=byte-size -Walloc-zero -Walloca -Walloca-larger-than=byte-size -Wno-aggressive-loop-optimizations -Warith-conversion -Warray-bounds -Warray-bounds=n -Wno-attributes -Wattribute-alias=n -Wno-attribute-alias -Wno-attribute-warning -Wbool-compare -Wbool-operation -Wno-builtin-declaration-mismatch -Wno-builtin-macro-redefined -Wc90-c99-compat -Wc99-c11-compat -Wc11-c2x-compat -Wc++-compat -Wc++11-compat -Wc++14-compat -Wc++17-compat -Wc++20-compat -Wcast-align -Wcast-align=strict -Wcast-function-type -Wcast-qual -Wchar-subscripts -Wclobbered -Wcomment -Wconversion -Wno-coverage-mismatch -Wno-cpp -Wdangling-else -Wdate-time -Wno-deprecated -Wno-deprecated-declarations -Wno-designated-init -Wdisabled-optimization -Wno-discarded-array-qualifiers -Wno-discarded-qualifiers -Wno-div-by-zero -Wdouble-promotion -Wduplicated-branches -Wduplicated-cond -Wempty-body -Wno-endif-labels -Wenum-compare -Wenum-conversion -Werror -Werror=* -Wexpansion-to-defined -Wfatal-errors -Wfloat-conversion -Wfloat-equal -Wformat -Wformat=2 -Wno-format-contains-nul -Wno-format-extra-args -Wformat-nonliteral -Wformat-overflow=n -Wformat-security -Wformat-signedness -Wformat-truncation=n -Wformat-y2k -Wframe-address -Wframe-larger-than=byte-size -Wno-free-nonheap-object -Wno-if-not-aligned -Wno-ignored-attributes -Wignored-qualifiers -Wno-incompatible-pointer-types -Wimplicit -Wimplicit-fallthrough -Wimplicit-fallthrough=n -Wno-implicit-function-declaration -Wno-implicit-int -Winit-self -Winline -Wno-int-conversion -Wint-in-bool-context -Wno-int-to-pointer-cast -Wno-invalid-memory-model -Winvalid-pch -Wjump-misses-init -Wlarger-than=byte-size -Wlogical-not-parentheses -Wlogical-op -Wlong-long -Wno-lto-type-mismatch -Wmain -Wmaybe-uninitialized -Wmemset-elt-size -Wmemset-transposed-args -Wmisleading-indentation -Wmissing-attributes -Wmissing-braces -Wmissing-field-initializers -Wmissing-format-attribute -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wmissing-noreturn -Wno-missing-profile -Wno-multichar -Wmultistatement-macros -Wnonnull -Wnonnull-compare -Wnormalized=[none|id|nfc|nfkc] -Wnull-dereference -Wno-odr -Wopenmp-simd -Wno-overflow -Woverlength-strings -Wno-override-init-side-effects -Wpacked -Wno-packed-bitfield-compat -Wpacked-not-aligned -Wpadded -Wparentheses -Wno-pedantic-ms-format -Wpointer-arith -Wno-pointer-compare -Wno-pointer-to-int-cast -Wno-pragmas -Wno-prio-ctor-dtor -Wredundant-decls -Wrestrict -Wno-return-local-addr -Wreturn-type -Wno-scalar-storage-order -Wsequence-point -Wshadow -Wshadow=global -Wshadow=local -Wshadow=compatible-local -Wno-shadow-ivar -Wno-shift-count-negative -Wno-shift-count-overflow -Wshift-negative-value -Wno-shift-overflow -Wshift-overflow=n -Wsign-compare -Wsign-conversion -Wno-sizeof-array-argument -Wsizeof-array-div -Wsizeof-pointer-div -Wsizeof-pointer-memaccess -Wstack-protector -Wstack-usage=byte-size -Wstrict-aliasing -Wstrict-aliasing=n -Wstrict-overflow -Wstrict-overflow=n -Wstring-compare -Wno-stringop-overflow -Wno-stringop-overread -Wno-stringop-truncation -Wsuggest-attribute=[pure|const|noreturn|format|malloc] -Wswitch -Wno-switch-bool -Wswitch-default -Wswitch-enum -Wno-switch-outside-range -Wno-switch-unreachable -Wsync-nand -Wsystem-headers -Wtautological-compare -Wtrampolines -Wtrigraphs -Wtsan -Wtype-limits -Wundef -Wuninitialized -Wunknown-pragmas -Wunsuffixed-float-constants -Wunused -Wunused-but-set-parameter -Wunused-but-set-variable -Wunused-const-variable -Wunused-const-variable=n -Wunused-function -Wunused-label -Wunused-local-typedefs -Wunused-macros -Wunused-parameter -Wno-unused-result -Wunused-value -Wunused-variable -Wno-varargs -Wvariadic-macros -Wvector-operation-performance -Wvla -Wvla-larger-than=byte-size -Wno-vla-larger-than -Wvolatile-register-var -Wwrite-strings -Wzero-length-bounds

Static Analyzer Options

-fanalyzer -fanalyzer-call-summaries -fanalyzer-checker=name -fno-analyzer-feasibility -fanalyzer-fine-grained -fanalyzer-state-merge -fanalyzer-state-purge -fanalyzer-transitivity -fanalyzer-verbose-edges -fanalyzer-verbose-state-changes -fanalyzer-verbosity=level -fdump-analyzer -fdump-analyzer-stderr -fdump-analyzer-callgraph -fdump-analyzer-exploded-graph -fdump-analyzer-exploded-nodes -fdump-analyzer-exploded-nodes-2 -fdump-analyzer-exploded-nodes-3 -fdump-analyzer-feasibility -fdump-analyzer-json -fdump-analyzer-state-purge -fdump-analyzer-supergraph -Wno-analyzer-double-fclose -Wno-analyzer-double-free -Wno-analyzer-exposure-through-output-file -Wno-analyzer-file-leak -Wno-analyzer-free-of-non-heap -Wno-analyzer-malloc-leak -Wno-analyzer-mismatching-deallocation -Wno-analyzer-null-argument -Wno-analyzer-null-dereference -Wno-analyzer-possible-null-argument -Wno-analyzer-possible-null-dereference -Wno-analyzer-shift-count-negative -Wno-analyzer-shift-count-overflow -Wno-analyzer-stale-setjmp-buffer -Wno-analyzer-tainted-array-index -Wanalyzer-too-complex -Wno-analyzer-unsafe-call-within-signal-handler -Wno-analyzer-use-after-free -Wno-analyzer-use-of-pointer-in-stale-stack-frame -Wno-analyzer-use-of-uninitialized-value -Wno-analyzer-write-to-const -Wno-analyzer-write-to-string-literal

C and Objective-C-only Warning Options

-Wbad-function-cast -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-parameter-type -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested-externs -Wold-style-declaration -Wold-style-definition -Wstrict-prototypes -Wtraditional -Wtraditional-conversion -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wpointer-sign

Debugging Options

-g -glevel -gdwarf -gdwarf-version -ggdb -grecord-gcc-switches -gno-record-gcc-switches -gstabs -gstabs+ -gstrict-dwarf -gno-strict-dwarf -gas-loc-support -gno-as-loc-support -gas-locview-support -gno-as-locview-support -gcolumn-info -gno-column-info -gdwarf32 -gdwarf64 -gstatement-frontiers -gno-statement-frontiers -gvariable-location-views -gno-variable-location-views -ginternal-reset-location-views -gno-internal-reset-location-views -ginline-points -gno-inline-points -gvms -gxcoff -gxcoff+ -gz[=type] -gsplit-dwarf -gdescribe-dies -gno-describe-dies -fdebug-prefix-map=old=new -fdebug-types-section -fno-eliminate-unused-debug-types -femit-struct-debug-baseonly -femit-struct-debug-reduced -femit-struct-debug-detailed[=spec-list] -fno-eliminate-unused-debug-symbols -femit-class-debug-always -fno-merge-debug-strings -fno-dwarf2-cfi-asm -fvar-tracking -fvar-tracking-assignments

Optimization Options

-faggressive-loop-optimizations -falign-functions[=n[:m:[n2[:m2]]]] -falign-jumps[=n[:m:[n2[:m2]]]] -falign-labels[=n[:m:[n2[:m2]]]] -falign-loops[=n[:m:[n2[:m2]]]] -fno-allocation-dce -fallow-store-data-races -fassociative-math -fauto-profile -fauto-profile[=path] -fauto-inc-dec -fbranch-probabilities -fcaller-saves -fcombine-stack-adjustments -fconserve-stack -fcompare-elim -fcprop-registers -fcrossjumping -fcse-follow-jumps -fcse-skip-blocks -fcx-fortran-rules -fcx-limited-range -fdata-sections -fdce -fdelayed-branch -fdelete-null-pointer-checks -fdevirtualize -fdevirtualize-speculatively -fdevirtualize-at-ltrans -fdse -fearly-inlining -fipa-sra -fexpensive-optimizations -ffat-lto-objects -ffast-math -ffinite-math-only -ffloat-store -fexcess-precision=style -ffinite-loops -fforward-propagate -ffp-contract=style -ffunction-sections -fgcse -fgcse-after-reload -fgcse-las -fgcse-lm -fgraphite-identity -fgcse-sm -fhoist-adjacent-loads -fif-conversion -fif-conversion2 -findirect-inlining -finline-functions -finline-functions-called-once -finline-limit=n -finline-small-functions -fipa-modref -fipa-cp -fipa-cp-clone -fipa-bit-cp -fipa-vrp -fipa-pta -fipa-profile -fipa-pure-const -fipa-reference -fipa-reference-addressable -fipa-stack-alignment -fipa-icf -fira-algorithm=algorithm -flive-patching=level -fira-region=region -fira-hoist-pressure -fira-loop-pressure -fno-ira-share-save-slots -fno-ira-share-spill-slots -fisolate-erroneous-paths-dereference -fisolate-erroneous-paths-attribute -fivopts -fkeep-inline-functions -fkeep-static-functions -fkeep-static-consts -flimit-function-alignment -flive-range-shrinkage -floop-block -floop-interchange -floop-strip-mine -floop-unroll-and-jam -floop-nest-optimize -floop-parallelize-all -flra-remat -flto -flto-compression-level -flto-partition=alg -fmerge-all-constants -fmerge-constants -fmodulo-sched -fmodulo-sched-allow-regmoves -fmove-loop-invariants -fno-branch-count-reg -fno-defer-pop -fno-fp-int-builtin-inexact -fno-function-cse -fno-guess-branch-probability -fno-inline -fno-math-errno -fno-peephole -fno-peephole2 -fno-printf-return-value -fno-sched-interblock -fno-sched-spec -fno-signed-zeros -fno-toplevel-reorder -fno-trapping-math -fno-zero-initialized-in-bss -fomit-frame-pointer -foptimize-sibling-calls -fpartial-inlining -fpeel-loops -fpredictive-commoning -fprefetch-loop-arrays -fprofile-correction -fprofile-use -fprofile-use=path -fprofile-partial-training -fprofile-values -fprofile-reorder-functions -freciprocal-math -free -frename-registers -freorder-blocks -freorder-blocks-algorithm=algorithm -freorder-blocks-and-partition -freorder-functions -frerun-cse-after-loop -freschedule-modulo-scheduled-loops -frounding-math -fsave-optimization-record -fsched2-use-superblocks -fsched-pressure -fsched-spec-load -fsched-spec-load-dangerous -fsched-stalled-insns-dep[=n] -fsched-stalled-insns[=n] -fsched-group-heuristic -fsched-critical-path-heuristic -fsched-spec-insn-heuristic -fsched-rank-heuristic -fsched-last-insn-heuristic -fsched-dep-count-heuristic -fschedule-fusion -fschedule-insns -fschedule-insns2 -fsection-anchors -fselective-scheduling -fselective-scheduling2 -fsel-sched-pipelining -fsel-sched-pipelining-outer-loops -fsemantic-interposition -fshrink-wrap -fshrink-wrap-separate -fsignaling-nans -fsingle-precision-constant -fsplit-ivs-in-unroller -fsplit-loops -fsplit-paths -fsplit-wide-types -fsplit-wide-types-early -fssa-backprop -fssa-phiopt -fstdarg-opt -fstore-merging -fstrict-aliasing -fthread-jumps -ftracer -ftree-bit-ccp -ftree-builtin-call-dce -ftree-ccp -ftree-ch -ftree-coalesce-vars -ftree-copy-prop -ftree-dce -ftree-dominator-opts -ftree-dse -ftree-forwprop -ftree-fre -fcode-hoisting -ftree-loop-if-convert -ftree-loop-im -ftree-phiprop -ftree-loop-distribution -ftree-loop-distribute-patterns -ftree-loop-ivcanon -ftree-loop-linear -ftree-loop-optimize -ftree-loop-vectorize -ftree-parallelize-loops=n -ftree-pre -ftree-partial-pre -ftree-pta -ftree-reassoc -ftree-scev-cprop -ftree-sink -ftree-slsr -ftree-sra -ftree-switch-conversion -ftree-tail-merge -ftree-ter -ftree-vectorize -ftree-vrp -funconstrained-commons -funit-at-a-time -funroll-all-loops -funroll-loops -funsafe-math-optimizations -funswitch-loops -fipa-ra -fvariable-expansion-in-unroller -fvect-cost-model -fvpt -fweb -fwhole-program -fwpa -fuse-linker-plugin -fzero-call-used-regs –param name=value -O -O0 -O1 -O2 -O3 -Os -Ofast -Og

Program Instrumentation Options

-p -pg -fprofile-arcs –coverage -ftest-coverage -fprofile-abs-path -fprofile-dir=path -fprofile-generate -fprofile-generate=path -fprofile-info-section -fprofile-info-section=name -fprofile-note=path -fprofile-prefix-path=path -fprofile-update=method -fprofile-filter-files=regex -fprofile-exclude-files=regex -fprofile-reproducible=[multithreaded|parallel-runs|serial] -fsanitize=style -fsanitize-recover -fsanitize-recover=style -fasan-shadow-offset=number -fsanitize-sections=s1,s2,… -fsanitize-undefined-trap-on-error -fbounds-check -fcf-protection=[full|branch|return|none|check] -fstack-protector -fstack-protector-all -fstack-protector-strong -fstack-protector-explicit -fstack-check -fstack-limit-register=reg -fstack-limit-symbol=sym -fno-stack-limit -fsplit-stack -fvtable-verify=[std|preinit|none] -fvtv-counts -fvtv-debug -finstrument-functions -finstrument-functions-exclude-function-list=sym,sym,… -finstrument-functions-exclude-file-list=file,file,…

Preprocessor Options

-Aquestion=answer -A-question[=answer] -C -CC -Dmacro[=defn] -dD -dI -dM -dN -dU -fdebug-cpp -fdirectives-only -fdollars-in-identifiers -fexec-charset=charset -fextended-identifiers -finput-charset=charset -flarge-source-files -fmacro-prefix-map=old=new -fmax-include-depth=depth -fno-canonical-system-headers -fpch-deps -fpch-preprocess -fpreprocessed -ftabstop=width -ftrack-macro-expansion -fwide-exec-charset=charset -fworking-directory -H -imacros file -include file -M -MD -MF -MG -MM -MMD -MP -MQ -MT -Mno-modules -no-integrated-cpp -P -pthread -remap -traditional -traditional-cpp -trigraphs -Umacro -undef -Wp,option -Xpreprocessor option

Assembler Options

-Wa,option -Xassembler option

Linker Options

object-file-name -fuse-ld=linker -llibrary -nostartfiles -nodefaultlibs -nolibc -nostdlib -e entry –entry=entry -pie -pthread -r -rdynamic -s -static -static-pie -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++ -static-libasan -static-libtsan -static-liblsan -static-libubsan -shared -shared-libgcc -symbolic -T script -Wl,option -Xlinker option -u symbol -z keyword

Directory Options

-Bprefix -Idir -I- -idirafter dir -imacros file -imultilib dir -iplugindir=dir -iprefix file -iquote dir -isysroot dir -isystem dir -iwithprefix dir -iwithprefixbefore dir -Ldir -no-canonical-prefixes –no-sysroot-suffix -nostdinc -nostdinc++ –sysroot=dir

Code Generation Options

-fcall-saved-reg -fcall-used-reg -ffixed-reg -fexceptions -fnon-call-exceptions -fdelete-dead-exceptions -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -fno-gnu-unique -finhibit-size-directive -fcommon -fno-ident -fpcc-struct-return -fpic -fPIC -fpie -fPIE -fno-plt -fno-jump-tables -fno-bit-tests -frecord-gcc-switches -freg-struct-return -fshort-enums -fshort-wchar -fverbose-asm -fpack-struct[=n] -fleading-underscore -ftls-model=model -fstack-reuse=reuse_level -ftrampolines -ftrapv -fwrapv -fvisibility=[default|internal|hidden|protected] -fstrict-volatile-bitfields -fsync-libcalls

Developer Options

-dletters -dumpspecs -dumpmachine -dumpversion -dumpfullversion -fcallgraph-info[=su,da] -fchecking -fchecking=n -fdbg-cnt-list -fdbg-cnt=counter-value-list -fdisable-ipa-pass_name -fdisable-rtl-pass_name -fdisable-rtl-pass-name=range-list -fdisable-tree-pass_name -fdisable-tree-pass-name=range-list -fdump-debug -fdump-earlydebug -fdump-noaddr -fdump-unnumbered -fdump-unnumbered-links -fdump-final-insns[=file] -fdump-ipa-all -fdump-ipa-cgraph -fdump-ipa-inline -fdump-lang-all -fdump-lang-switch -fdump-lang-switch–options -fdump-lang-switch–options=filename -fdump-passes -fdump-rtl-pass -fdump-rtl-pass=filename -fdump-statistics -fdump-tree-all -fdump-tree-switch -fdump-tree-switch–options -fdump-tree-switch–options=filename -fcompare-debug[=opts] -fcompare-debug-second -fenable-kind–pass -fenable-kind–pass=range-list -fira-verbose=n -flto-report -flto-report-wpa -fmem-report-wpa -fmem-report -fpre-ipa-mem-report -fpost-ipa-mem-report -fopt-info -fopt-info-options[=file] -fprofile-report -frandom-seed=string -fsched-verbose=n -fsel-sched-verbose -fsel-sched-dump-cfg -fsel-sched-pipelining-verbose -fstats -fstack-usage -ftime-report -ftime-report-details -fvar-tracking-assignments-toggle -gtoggle -print-file-name=library -print-libgcc-file-name -print-multi-directory -print-multi-lib -print-multi-os-directory -print-prog-name=program -print-search-dirs -Q -print-sysroot -print-sysroot-headers-suffix -save-temps -save-temps=cwd -save-temps=obj -time[=file]

Machine-Dependent Options

AArch64 Options -mabi=name -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -mgeneral-regs-only -mcmodel=tiny -mcmodel=small -mcmodel=large -mstrict-align -mno-strict-align -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -mtls-dialect=desc -mtls-dialect=traditional -mtls-size=size -mfix-cortex-a53-835769 -mfix-cortex-a53-843419 -mlow-precision-recip-sqrt -mlow-precision-sqrt -mlow-precision-div -mpc-relative-literal-loads -msign-return-address=scope -mbranch-protection=none|standard|pac-ret[+leaf +b-key]|bti -mharden-sls=opts -march=name -mcpu=name -mtune=name -moverride=string -mverbose-cost-dump -mstack-protector-guard=guard -mstack-protector-guard-reg=sysreg -mstack-protector-guard-offset=offset -mtrack-speculation -moutline-atomics

Adapteva Epiphany Options -mhalf-reg-file -mprefer-short-insn-regs -mbranch-cost=num -mcmove -mnops=num -msoft-cmpsf -msplit-lohi -mpost-inc -mpost-modify -mstack-offset=num -mround-nearest -mlong-calls -mshort-calls -msmall16 -mfp-mode=mode -mvect-double -max-vect-align=num -msplit-vecmove-early -m1reg-reg

AMD GCN Options -march=gpu -mtune=gpu -mstack-size=bytes

ARC Options -mbarrel-shifter -mjli-always -mcpu=cpu -mA6 -mARC600 -mA7 -mARC700 -mdpfp -mdpfp-compact -mdpfp-fast -mno-dpfp-lrsr -mea -mno-mpy -mmul32x16 -mmul64 -matomic -mnorm -mspfp -mspfp-compact -mspfp-fast -msimd -msoft-float -mswap -mcrc -mdsp-packa -mdvbf -mlock -mmac-d16 -mmac-24 -mrtsc -mswape -mtelephony -mxy -misize -mannotate-align -marclinux -marclinux_prof -mlong-calls -mmedium-calls -msdata -mirq-ctrl-saved -mrgf-banked-regs -mlpc-width=width -G num -mvolatile-cache -mtp-regno=regno -malign-call -mauto-modify-reg -mbbit-peephole -mno-brcc -mcase-vector-pcrel -mcompact-casesi -mno-cond-exec -mearly-cbranchsi -mexpand-adddi -mindexed-loads -mlra -mlra-priority-none -mlra-priority-compact mlra-priority-noncompact -mmillicode -mmixed-code -mq-class -mRcq -mRcw -msize-level=level -mtune=cpu -mmultcost=num -mcode-density-frame -munalign-prob-threshold=probability -mmpy-option=multo -mdiv-rem -mcode-density -mll64 -mfpu=fpu -mrf16 -mbranch-index

ARM Options -mapcs-frame -mno-apcs-frame -mabi=name -mapcs-stack-check -mno-apcs-stack-check -mapcs-reentrant -mno-apcs-reentrant -mgeneral-regs-only -msched-prolog -mno-sched-prolog -mlittle-endian -mbig-endian -mbe8 -mbe32 -mfloat-abi=name -mfp16-format=name -mthumb-interwork -mno-thumb-interwork -mcpu=name -march=name -mfpu=name -mtune=name -mprint-tune-info -mstructure-size-boundary=n -mabort-on-noreturn -mlong-calls -mno-long-calls -msingle-pic-base -mno-single-pic-base -mpic-register=reg -mnop-fun-dllimport -mpoke-function-name -mthumb -marm -mflip-thumb -mtpcs-frame -mtpcs-leaf-frame -mcaller-super-interworking -mcallee-super-interworking -mtp=name -mtls-dialect=dialect -mword-relocations -mfix-cortex-m3-ldrd -munaligned-access -mneon-for-64bits -mslow-flash-data -masm-syntax-unified -mrestrict-it -mverbose-cost-dump -mpure-code -mcmse -mfix-cmse-cve-2021-35465 -mfdpic

AVR Options -mmcu=mcu -mabsdata -maccumulate-args -mbranch-cost=cost -mcall-prologues -mgas-isr-prologues -mint8 -mdouble=bits -mlong-double=bits -mn_flash=size -mno-interrupts -mmain-is-OS_task -mrelax -mrmw -mstrict-X -mtiny-stack -mfract-convert-truncate -mshort-calls -nodevicelib -nodevicespecs -Waddr-space-convert -Wmisspelled-isr

Blackfin Options -mcpu=cpu[–sirevision] -msim -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer -mspecld-anomaly -mno-specld-anomaly -mcsync-anomaly -mno-csync-anomaly -mlow-64k -mno-low64k -mstack-check-l1 -mid-shared-library -mno-id-shared-library -mshared-library-id=n -mleaf-id-shared-library -mno-leaf-id-shared-library -msep-data -mno-sep-data -mlong-calls -mno-long-calls -mfast-fp -minline-plt -mmulticore -mcorea -mcoreb -msdram -micplb

C6X Options -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -march=cpu -msim -msdata=sdata-type

CRIS Options -mcpu=cpu -march=cpu -mtune=cpu -mmax-stack-frame=n -metrax4 -metrax100 -mpdebug -mcc-init -mno-side-effects -mstack-align -mdata-align -mconst-align -m32-bit -m16-bit -m8-bit -mno-prologue-epilogue -melf -maout -sim -sim2 -mmul-bug-workaround -mno-mul-bug-workaround

CR16 Options -mmac -mcr16cplus -mcr16c -msim -mint32 -mbit-ops -mdata-model=model

C-SKY Options -march=arch -mcpu=cpu -mbig-endian -EB -mlittle-endian -EL -mhard-float -msoft-float -mfpu=fpu -mdouble-float -mfdivdu -mfloat-abi=name -melrw -mistack -mmp -mcp -mcache -msecurity -mtrust -mdsp -medsp -mvdsp -mdiv -msmart -mhigh-registers -manchor -mpushpop -mmultiple-stld -mconstpool -mstack-size -mccrt -mbranch-cost=n -mcse-cc -msched-prolog -msim

Darwin Options -all_load -allowable_client -arch -arch_errors_fatal -arch_only -bind_at_load -bundle -bundle_loader -client_name -compatibility_version -current_version -dead_strip -dependency-file -dylib_file -dylinker_install_name -dynamic -dynamiclib -exported_symbols_list -filelist -flat_namespace -force_cpusubtype_ALL -force_flat_namespace -headerpad_max_install_names -iframework -image_base -init -install_name -keep_private_externs -multi_module -multiply_defined -multiply_defined_unused -noall_load -no_dead_strip_inits_and_terms -nofixprebinding -nomultidefs -noprebind -noseglinkedit -pagezero_size -prebind -prebind_all_twolevel_modules -private_bundle -read_only_relocs -sectalign -sectobjectsymbols -whyload -seg1addr -sectcreate -sectobjectsymbols -sectorder -segaddr -segs_read_only_addr -segs_read_write_addr -seg_addr_table -seg_addr_table_filename -seglinkedit -segprot -segs_read_only_addr -segs_read_write_addr -single_module -static -sub_library -sub_umbrella -twolevel_namespace -umbrella -undefined -unexported_symbols_list -weak_reference_mismatches -whatsloaded -F -gused -gfull -mmacosx-version-min=version -mkernel -mone-byte-bool

DEC Alpha Options -mno-fp-regs -msoft-float -mieee -mieee-with-inexact -mieee-conformant -mfp-trap-mode=mode -mfp-rounding-mode=mode -mtrap-precision=mode -mbuild-constants -mcpu=cpu-type -mtune=cpu-type -mbwx -mmax -mfix -mcix -mfloat-vax -mfloat-ieee -mexplicit-relocs -msmall-data -mlarge-data -msmall-text -mlarge-text -mmemory-latency=time

eBPF Options -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -mkernel=version -mframe-limit=bytes -mxbpf

FR30 Options -msmall-model -mno-lsim

FT32 Options -msim -mlra -mnodiv -mft32b -mcompress -mnopm

FRV Options -mgpr-32 -mgpr-64 -mfpr-32 -mfpr-64 -mhard-float -msoft-float -malloc-cc -mfixed-cc -mdword -mno-dword -mdouble -mno-double -mmedia -mno-media -mmuladd -mno-muladd -mfdpic -minline-plt -mgprel-ro -multilib-library-pic -mlinked-fp -mlong-calls -malign-labels -mlibrary-pic -macc-4 -macc-8 -mpack -mno-pack -mno-eflags -mcond-move -mno-cond-move -moptimize-membar -mno-optimize-membar -mscc -mno-scc -mcond-exec -mno-cond-exec -mvliw-branch -mno-vliw-branch -mmulti-cond-exec -mno-multi-cond-exec -mnested-cond-exec -mno-nested-cond-exec -mtomcat-stats -mTLS -mtls -mcpu=cpu

GNU/Linux Options -mglibc -muclibc -mmusl -mbionic -mandroid -tno-android-cc -tno-android-ld

H8/300 Options -mrelax -mh -ms -mn -mexr -mno-exr -mint32 -malign-300

HPPA Options -march=architecture-type -mcaller-copies -mdisable-fpregs -mdisable-indexing -mfast-indirect-calls -mgas -mgnu-ld -mhp-ld -mfixed-range=register-range -mjump-in-delay -mlinker-opt -mlong-calls -mlong-load-store -mno-disable-fpregs -mno-disable-indexing -mno-fast-indirect-calls -mno-gas -mno-jump-in-delay -mno-long-load-store -mno-portable-runtime -mno-soft-float -mno-space-regs -msoft-float -mpa-risc-1-0 -mpa-risc-1-1 -mpa-risc-2-0 -mportable-runtime -mschedule=cpu-type -mspace-regs -msio -mwsio -munix=unix-std -nolibdld -static -threads

IA-64 Options -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -mgnu-as -mgnu-ld -mno-pic -mvolatile-asm-stop -mregister-names -msdata -mno-sdata -mconstant-gp -mauto-pic -mfused-madd -minline-float-divide-min-latency -minline-float-divide-max-throughput -mno-inline-float-divide -minline-int-divide-min-latency -minline-int-divide-max-throughput -mno-inline-int-divide -minline-sqrt-min-latency -minline-sqrt-max-throughput -mno-inline-sqrt -mdwarf2-asm -mearly-stop-bits -mfixed-range=register-range -mtls-size=tls-size -mtune=cpu-type -milp32 -mlp64 -msched-br-data-spec -msched-ar-data-spec -msched-control-spec -msched-br-in-data-spec -msched-ar-in-data-spec -msched-in-control-spec -msched-spec-ldc -msched-spec-control-ldc -msched-prefer-non-data-spec-insns -msched-prefer-non-control-spec-insns -msched-stop-bits-after-every-cycle -msched-count-spec-in-critical-path -msel-sched-dont-check-control-spec -msched-fp-mem-deps-zero-cost -msched-max-memory-insns-hard-limit -msched-max-memory-insns=max-insns

LM32 Options -mbarrel-shift-enabled -mdivide-enabled -mmultiply-enabled -msign-extend-enabled -muser-enabled

M32R/D Options -m32r2 -m32rx -m32r -mdebug -malign-loops -mno-align-loops -missue-rate=number -mbranch-cost=number -mmodel=code-size-model-type -msdata=sdata-type -mno-flush-func -mflush-func=name -mno-flush-trap -mflush-trap=number -G num

M32C Options -mcpu=cpu -msim -memregs=number

M680x0 Options -march=arch -mcpu=cpu -mtune=tune -m68000 -m68020 -m68020-40 -m68020-60 -m68030 -m68040 -m68060 -mcpu32 -m5200 -m5206e -m528x -m5307 -m5407 -mcfv4e -mbitfield -mno-bitfield -mc68000 -mc68020 -mnobitfield -mrtd -mno-rtd -mdiv -mno-div -mshort -mno-short -mhard-float -m68881 -msoft-float -mpcrel -malign-int -mstrict-align -msep-data -mno-sep-data -mshared-library-id=n -mid-shared-library -mno-id-shared-library -mxgot -mno-xgot -mlong-jump-table-offsets

MCore Options -mhardlit -mno-hardlit -mdiv -mno-div -mrelax-immediates -mno-relax-immediates -mwide-bitfields -mno-wide-bitfields -m4byte-functions -mno-4byte-functions -mcallgraph-data -mno-callgraph-data -mslow-bytes -mno-slow-bytes -mno-lsim -mlittle-endian -mbig-endian -m210 -m340 -mstack-increment

MeP Options -mabsdiff -mall-opts -maverage -mbased=n -mbitops -mc=n -mclip -mconfig=name -mcop -mcop32 -mcop64 -mivc2 -mdc -mdiv -meb -mel -mio-volatile -ml -mleadz -mm -mminmax -mmult -mno-opts -mrepeat -ms -msatur -msdram -msim -msimnovec -mtf -mtiny=n

MicroBlaze Options -msoft-float -mhard-float -msmall-divides -mcpu=cpu -mmemcpy -mxl-soft-mul -mxl-soft-div -mxl-barrel-shift -mxl-pattern-compare -mxl-stack-check -mxl-gp-opt -mno-clearbss -mxl-multiply-high -mxl-float-convert -mxl-float-sqrt -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -mxl-reorder -mxl-mode-app-model -mpic-data-is-text-relative

MIPS Options -EL -EB -march=arch -mtune=arch -mips1 -mips2 -mips3 -mips4 -mips32 -mips32r2 -mips32r3 -mips32r5 -mips32r6 -mips64 -mips64r2 -mips64r3 -mips64r5 -mips64r6 -mips16 -mno-mips16 -mflip-mips16 -minterlink-compressed -mno-interlink-compressed -minterlink-mips16 -mno-interlink-mips16 -mabi=abi -mabicalls -mno-abicalls -mshared -mno-shared -mplt -mno-plt -mxgot -mno-xgot -mgp32 -mgp64 -mfp32 -mfpxx -mfp64 -mhard-float -msoft-float -mno-float -msingle-float -mdouble-float -modd-spreg -mno-odd-spreg -mabs=mode -mnan=encoding -mdsp -mno-dsp -mdspr2 -mno-dspr2 -mmcu -mmno-mcu -meva -mno-eva -mvirt -mno-virt -mxpa -mno-xpa -mcrc -mno-crc -mginv -mno-ginv -mmicromips -mno-micromips -mmsa -mno-msa -mloongson-mmi -mno-loongson-mmi -mloongson-ext -mno-loongson-ext -mloongson-ext2 -mno-loongson-ext2 -mfpu=fpu-type -msmartmips -mno-smartmips -mpaired-single -mno-paired-single -mdmx -mno-mdmx -mips3d -mno-mips3d -mmt -mno-mt -mllsc -mno-llsc -mlong64 -mlong32 -msym32 -mno-sym32 -Gnum -mlocal-sdata -mno-local-sdata -mextern-sdata -mno-extern-sdata -mgpopt -mno-gopt -membedded-data -mno-embedded-data -muninit-const-in-rodata -mno-uninit-const-in-rodata -mcode-readable=setting -msplit-addresses -mno-split-addresses -mexplicit-relocs -mno-explicit-relocs -mcheck-zero-division -mno-check-zero-division -mdivide-traps -mdivide-breaks -mload-store-pairs -mno-load-store-pairs -mmemcpy -mno-memcpy -mlong-calls -mno-long-calls -mmad -mno-mad -mimadd -mno-imadd -mfused-madd -mno-fused-madd -nocpp -mfix-24k -mno-fix-24k -mfix-r4000 -mno-fix-r4000 -mfix-r4400 -mno-fix-r4400 -mfix-r5900 -mno-fix-r5900 -mfix-r10000 -mno-fix-r10000 -mfix-rm7000 -mno-fix-rm7000 -mfix-vr4120 -mno-fix-vr4120 -mfix-vr4130 -mno-fix-vr4130 -mfix-sb1 -mno-fix-sb1 -mflush-func=func -mno-flush-func -mbranch-cost=num -mbranch-likely -mno-branch-likely -mcompact-branches=policy -mfp-exceptions -mno-fp-exceptions -mvr4130-align -mno-vr4130-align -msynci -mno-synci -mlxc1-sxc1 -mno-lxc1-sxc1 -mmadd4 -mno-madd4 -mrelax-pic-calls -mno-relax-pic-calls -mmcount-ra-address -mframe-header-opt -mno-frame-header-opt

MMIX Options -mlibfuncs -mno-libfuncs -mepsilon -mno-epsilon -mabi=gnu -mabi=mmixware -mzero-extend -mknuthdiv -mtoplevel-symbols -melf -mbranch-predict -mno-branch-predict -mbase-addresses -mno-base-addresses -msingle-exit -mno-single-exit

MN10300 Options -mmult-bug -mno-mult-bug -mno-am33 -mam33 -mam33-2 -mam34 -mtune=cpu-type -mreturn-pointer-on-d0 -mno-crt0 -mrelax -mliw -msetlb

Moxie Options -meb -mel -mmul.x -mno-crt0

MSP430 Options -msim -masm-hex -mmcu= -mcpu= -mlarge -msmall -mrelax -mwarn-mcu -mcode-region= -mdata-region= -msilicon-errata= -msilicon-errata-warn= -mhwmult= -minrt -mtiny-printf -mmax-inline-shift=

NDS32 Options -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -mreduced-regs -mfull-regs -mcmov -mno-cmov -mext-perf -mno-ext-perf -mext-perf2 -mno-ext-perf2 -mext-string -mno-ext-string -mv3push -mno-v3push -m16bit -mno-16bit -misr-vector-size=num -mcache-block-size=num -march=arch -mcmodel=code-model -mctor-dtor -mrelax

Nios II Options -G num -mgpopt=option -mgpopt -mno-gpopt -mgprel-sec=regexp -mr0rel-sec=regexp -mel -meb -mno-bypass-cache -mbypass-cache -mno-cache-volatile -mcache-volatile -mno-fast-sw-div -mfast-sw-div -mhw-mul -mno-hw-mul -mhw-mulx -mno-hw-mulx -mno-hw-div -mhw-div -mcustom-insn=N -mno-custom-insn -mcustom-fpu-cfg=name -mhal -msmallc -msys-crt0=name -msys-lib=name -march=arch -mbmx -mno-bmx -mcdx -mno-cdx

Nvidia PTX Options -m64 -mmainkernel -moptimize

OpenRISC Options -mboard=name -mnewlib -mhard-mul -mhard-div -msoft-mul -msoft-div -msoft-float -mhard-float -mdouble-float -munordered-float -mcmov -mror -mrori -msext -msfimm -mshftimm

PDP-11 Options -mfpu -msoft-float -mac0 -mno-ac0 -m40 -m45 -m10 -mint32 -mno-int16 -mint16 -mno-int32 -msplit -munix-asm -mdec-asm -mgnu-asm -mlra

picoChip Options -mae=ae_type -mvliw-lookahead=N -msymbol-as-address -mno-inefficient-warnings

PowerPC Options See RS/6000 and PowerPC Options.

PRU Options -mmcu=mcu -minrt -mno-relax -mloop -mabi=variant

RISC-V Options -mbranch-cost=N-instruction -mplt -mno-plt -mabi=ABI-string -mfdiv -mno-fdiv -mdiv -mno-div -march=ISA-string -mtune=processor-string -mpreferred-stack-boundary=num -msmall-data-limit=N-bytes -msave-restore -mno-save-restore -mshorten-memrefs -mno-shorten-memrefs -mstrict-align -mno-strict-align -mcmodel=medlow -mcmodel=medany -mexplicit-relocs -mno-explicit-relocs -mrelax -mno-relax -mriscv-attribute -mmo-riscv-attribute -malign-data=type -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian +-mstack-protector-guard=guard -mstack-protector-guard-reg=reg +-mstack-protector-guard-offset=offset

RL78 Options -msim -mmul=none -mmul=g13 -mmul=g14 -mallregs -mcpu=g10 -mcpu=g13 -mcpu=g14 -mg10 -mg13 -mg14 -m64bit-doubles -m32bit-doubles -msave-mduc-in-interrupts

RS/6000 and PowerPC Options -mcpu=cpu-type -mtune=cpu-type -mcmodel=code-model -mpowerpc64 -maltivec -mno-altivec -mpowerpc-gpopt -mno-powerpc-gpopt -mpowerpc-gfxopt -mno-powerpc-gfxopt -mmfcrf -mno-mfcrf -mpopcntb -mno-popcntb -mpopcntd -mno-popcntd -mfprnd -mno-fprnd -mcmpb -mno-cmpb -mhard-dfp -mno-hard-dfp -mfull-toc -mminimal-toc -mno-fp-in-toc -mno-sum-in-toc -m64 -m32 -mxl-compat -mno-xl-compat -mpe -malign-power -malign-natural -msoft-float -mhard-float -mmultiple -mno-multiple -mupdate -mno-update -mavoid-indexed-addresses -mno-avoid-indexed-addresses -mfused-madd -mno-fused-madd -mbit-align -mno-bit-align -mstrict-align -mno-strict-align -mrelocatable -mno-relocatable -mrelocatable-lib -mno-relocatable-lib -mtoc -mno-toc -mlittle -mlittle-endian -mbig -mbig-endian -mdynamic-no-pic -mswdiv -msingle-pic-base -mprioritize-restricted-insns=priority -msched-costly-dep=dependence_type -minsert-sched-nops=scheme -mcall-aixdesc -mcall-eabi -mcall-freebsd -mcall-linux -mcall-netbsd -mcall-openbsd -mcall-sysv -mcall-sysv-eabi -mcall-sysv-noeabi -mtraceback=traceback_type -maix-struct-return -msvr4-struct-return -mabi=abi-type -msecure-plt -mbss-plt -mlongcall -mno-longcall -mpltseq -mno-pltseq -mblock-move-inline-limit=num -mblock-compare-inline-limit=num -mblock-compare-inline-loop-limit=num -mno-block-ops-unaligned-vsx -mstring-compare-inline-limit=num -misel -mno-isel -mvrsave -mno-vrsave -mmulhw -mno-mulhw -mdlmzb -mno-dlmzb -mprototype -mno-prototype -msim -mmvme -mads -myellowknife -memb -msdata -msdata=opt -mreadonly-in-sdata -mvxworks -G num -mrecip -mrecip=opt -mno-recip -mrecip-precision -mno-recip-precision -mveclibabi=type -mfriz -mno-friz -mpointers-to-nested-functions -mno-pointers-to-nested-functions -msave-toc-indirect -mno-save-toc-indirect -mpower8-fusion -mno-mpower8-fusion -mpower8-vector -mno-power8-vector -mcrypto -mno-crypto -mhtm -mno-htm -mquad-memory -mno-quad-memory -mquad-memory-atomic -mno-quad-memory-atomic -mcompat-align-parm -mno-compat-align-parm -mfloat128 -mno-float128 -mfloat128-hardware -mno-float128-hardware -mgnu-attribute -mno-gnu-attribute -mstack-protector-guard=guard -mstack-protector-guard-reg=reg -mstack-protector-guard-offset=offset -mprefixed -mno-prefixed -mpcrel -mno-pcrel -mmma -mno-mmma -mrop-protect -mno-rop-protect -mprivileged -mno-privileged

RX Options -m64bit-doubles -m32bit-doubles -fpu -nofpu -mcpu= -mbig-endian-data -mlittle-endian-data -msmall-data -msim -mno-sim -mas100-syntax -mno-as100-syntax -mrelax -mmax-constant-size= -mint-register= -mpid -mallow-string-insns -mno-allow-string-insns -mjsr -mno-warn-multiple-fast-interrupts -msave-acc-in-interrupts

S/390 and zSeries Options -mtune=cpu-type -march=cpu-type -mhard-float -msoft-float -mhard-dfp -mno-hard-dfp -mlong-double-64 -mlong-double-128 -mbackchain -mno-backchain -mpacked-stack -mno-packed-stack -msmall-exec -mno-small-exec -mmvcle -mno-mvcle -m64 -m31 -mdebug -mno-debug -mesa -mzarch -mhtm -mvx -mzvector -mtpf-trace -mno-tpf-trace -mtpf-trace-skip -mno-tpf-trace-skip -mfused-madd -mno-fused-madd -mwarn-framesize -mwarn-dynamicstack -mstack-size -mstack-guard -mhotpatch=halfwords,halfwords

Score Options -meb -mel -mnhwloop -muls -mmac -mscore5 -mscore5u -mscore7 -mscore7d

SH Options -m1 -m2 -m2e -m2a-nofpu -m2a-single-only -m2a-single -m2a -m3 -m3e -m4-nofpu -m4-single-only -m4-single -m4 -m4a-nofpu -m4a-single-only -m4a-single -m4a -m4al -mb -ml -mdalign -mrelax -mbigtable -mfmovd -mrenesas -mno-renesas -mnomacsave -mieee -mno-ieee -mbitops -misize -minline-ic_invalidate -mpadstruct -mprefergot -musermode -multcost=number -mdiv=strategy -mdivsi3_libfunc=name -mfixed-range=register-range -maccumulate-outgoing-args -matomic-model=atomic-model -mbranch-cost=num -mzdcbranch -mno-zdcbranch -mcbranch-force-delay-slot -mfused-madd -mno-fused-madd -mfsca -mno-fsca -mfsrra -mno-fsrra -mpretend-cmove -mtas

Solaris 2 Options -mclear-hwcap -mno-clear-hwcap -mimpure-text -mno-impure-text -pthreads

SPARC Options -mcpu=cpu-type -mtune=cpu-type -mcmodel=code-model -mmemory-model=mem-model -m32 -m64 -mapp-regs -mno-app-regs -mfaster-structs -mno-faster-structs -mflat -mno-flat -mfpu -mno-fpu -mhard-float -msoft-float -mhard-quad-float -msoft-quad-float -mstack-bias -mno-stack-bias -mstd-struct-return -mno-std-struct-return -munaligned-doubles -mno-unaligned-doubles -muser-mode -mno-user-mode -mv8plus -mno-v8plus -mvis -mno-vis -mvis2 -mno-vis2 -mvis3 -mno-vis3 -mvis4 -mno-vis4 -mvis4b -mno-vis4b -mcbcond -mno-cbcond -mfmaf -mno-fmaf -mfsmuld -mno-fsmuld -mpopc -mno-popc -msubxc -mno-subxc -mfix-at697f -mfix-ut699 -mfix-ut700 -mfix-gr712rc -mlra -mno-lra

System V Options -Qy -Qn -YP,paths -Ym,dir

TILE-Gx Options -mcpu=CPU -m32 -m64 -mbig-endian -mlittle-endian -mcmodel=code-model

TILEPro Options -mcpu=cpu -m32

V850 Options -mlong-calls -mno-long-calls -mep -mno-ep -mprolog-function -mno-prolog-function -mspace -mtda=n -msda=n -mzda=n -mapp-regs -mno-app-regs -mdisable-callt -mno-disable-callt -mv850e2v3 -mv850e2 -mv850e1 -mv850es -mv850e -mv850 -mv850e3v5 -mloop -mrelax -mlong-jumps -msoft-float -mhard-float -mgcc-abi -mrh850-abi -mbig-switch

VAX Options -mg -mgnu -munix

Visium Options -mdebug -msim -mfpu -mno-fpu -mhard-float -msoft-float -mcpu=cpu-type -mtune=cpu-type -msv-mode -muser-mode

VMS Options -mvms-return-codes -mdebug-main=prefix -mmalloc64 -mpointer-size=size

VxWorks Options -mrtp -non-static -Bstatic -Bdynamic -Xbind-lazy -Xbind-now

x86 Options -mtune=cpu-type -march=cpu-type -mtune-ctrl=feature-list -mdump-tune-features -mno-default -mfpmath=unit -masm=dialect -mno-fancy-math-387 -mno-fp-ret-in-387 -m80387 -mhard-float -msoft-float -mno-wide-multiply -mrtd -malign-double -mpreferred-stack-boundary=num -mincoming-stack-boundary=num -mcld -mcx16 -msahf -mmovbe -mcrc32 -mmwait -mrecip -mrecip=opt -mvzeroupper -mprefer-avx128 -mprefer-vector-width=opt -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mssse3 -msse4.1 -msse4.2 -msse4 -mavx -mavx2 -mavx512f -mavx512pf -mavx512er -mavx512cd -mavx512vl -mavx512bw -mavx512dq -mavx512ifma -mavx512vbmi -msha -maes -mpclmul -mfsgsbase -mrdrnd -mf16c -mfma -mpconfig -mwbnoinvd -mptwrite -mprefetchwt1 -mclflushopt -mclwb -mxsavec -mxsaves -msse4a -m3dnow -m3dnowa -mpopcnt -mabm -mbmi -mtbm -mfma4 -mxop -madx -mlzcnt -mbmi2 -mfxsr -mxsave -mxsaveopt -mrtm -mhle -mlwp -mmwaitx -mclzero -mpku -mthreads -mgfni -mvaes -mwaitpkg -mshstk -mmanual-endbr -mforce-indirect-call -mavx512vbmi2 -mavx512bf16 -menqcmd -mvpclmulqdq -mavx512bitalg -mmovdiri -mmovdir64b -mavx512vpopcntdq -mavx5124fmaps -mavx512vnni -mavx5124vnniw -mprfchw -mrdpid -mrdseed -msgx -mavx512vp2intersect -mserialize -mtsxldtrk -mamx-tile -mamx-int8 -mamx-bf16 -muintr -mhreset -mavxvnni -mcldemote -mms-bitfields -mno-align-stringops -minline-all-stringops -minline-stringops-dynamically -mstringop-strategy=alg -mkl -mwidekl -mmemcpy-strategy=strategy -mmemset-strategy=strategy -mpush-args -maccumulate-outgoing-args -m128bit-long-double -m96bit-long-double -mlong-double-64 -mlong-double-80 -mlong-double-128 -mregparm=num -msseregparm -mveclibabi=type -mvect8-ret-in-mem -mpc32 -mpc64 -mpc80 -mstackrealign -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -mno-red-zone -mno-tls-direct-seg-refs -mcmodel=code-model -mabi=name -maddress-mode=mode -m32 -m64 -mx32 -m16 -miamcu -mlarge-data-threshold=num -msse2avx -mfentry -mrecord-mcount -mnop-mcount -m8bit-idiv -minstrument-return=type -mfentry-name=name -mfentry-section=name -mavx256-split-unaligned-load -mavx256-split-unaligned-store -malign-data=type -mstack-protector-guard=guard -mstack-protector-guard-reg=reg -mstack-protector-guard-offset=offset -mstack-protector-guard-symbol=symbol -mgeneral-regs-only -mcall-ms2sysv-xlogues -mindirect-branch=choice -mfunction-return=choice -mindirect-branch-register -mharden-sls=choice -mindirect-branch-cs-prefix -mneeded

x86 Windows Options -mconsole -mcygwin -mno-cygwin -mdll -mnop-fun-dllimport -mthread -municode -mwin32 -mwindows -fno-set-stack-executable

Xstormy16 Options -msim

Xtensa Options -mconst16 -mno-const16 -mfused-madd -mno-fused-madd -mforce-no-pic -mserialize-volatile -mno-serialize-volatile -mtext-section-literals -mno-text-section-literals -mauto-litpools -mno-auto-litpools -mtarget-align -mno-target-align -mlongcalls -mno-longcalls -mabi=abi-type

zSeries Options See S/390 and zSeries Options.

Options Controlling the Kind of Output

Compilation can involve up to four stages: preprocessing, compilation proper, assembly and linking, always in that order. GCC is capable of preprocessing and compiling several files either into several assembler input files, or into one assembler input file; then each assembler input file produces an object file, and linking combines all the object files (those newly compiled, and those specified as input) into an executable file.

For any given input file, the file name suffix determines what kind of compilation is done:

file.c

C source code that must be preprocessed.

file.i

C source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.ii

C++ source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.m

Objective-C source code. Note that you must link with the libobjc library to make an Objective-C program work.

file.mi

Objective-C source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.mm

file.M

Objective-C++ source code. Note that you must link with the libobjc library to make an Objective-C++ program work. Note that .M refers to a literal capital M.

file.mii

Objective-C++ source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.h

C, C++, Objective-C or Objective-C++ header file to be turned into a precompiled header (default), or C, C++ header file to be turned into an Ada spec (via the -fdump-ada-spec switch).

file.cc

file.cp

file.cxx

file.cpp

file.CPP

file.c++

file.C

C++ source code that must be preprocessed. Note that in .cxx, the last two letters must both be literally x. Likewise, .C refers to a literal capital C.

file.mm

file.M

Objective-C++ source code that must be preprocessed.

file.mii

Objective-C++ source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.hh

file.H

file.hp

file.hxx

file.hpp

file.HPP

file.h++

file.tcc

C++ header file to be turned into a precompiled header or Ada spec.

file.f

file.for

file.ftn

Fixed form Fortran source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.F

file.FOR

file.fpp

file.FPP

file.FTN

Fixed form Fortran source code that must be preprocessed (with the traditional preprocessor).

file.f90

file.f95

file.f03

file.f08

Free form Fortran source code that should not be preprocessed.

file.F90

file.F95

file.F03

file.F08

Free form Fortran source code that must be preprocessed (with the traditional preprocessor).

file.go

Go source code.

file.brig

BRIG files (binary representation of HSAIL).

file.d

D source code.

file.di

D interface file.

file.dd

D documentation code (Ddoc).

file.ads

Ada source code file that contains a library unit declaration (a declaration of a package, subprogram, or generic, or a generic instantiation), or a library unit renaming declaration (a package, generic, or subprogram renaming declaration). Such files are also called specs.

file.adb

Ada source code file containing a library unit body (a subprogram or package body). Such files are also called bodies.

file.s

Assembler code.

file.S

file.sx

Assembler code that must be preprocessed.

other

An object file to be fed straight into linking. Any file name with no recognized suffix is treated this way.

You can specify the input language explicitly with the -x option:

-x language

Specify explicitly the language for the following input files (rather than letting the compiler choose a default based on the file name suffix). This option applies to all following input files until the next -x option. Possible values for language are:

 c c-header cpp-output
 c++ c++-header c++-system-header c++-user-header c++-cpp-output
 objective-c objective-c-header objective-c-cpp-output
 objective-c++ objective-c++-header objective-c++-cpp-output
 assembler assembler-with-cpp
 ada
 d
 f77 f77-cpp-input f95 f95-cpp-input
 go
 brig

-x none

Turn off any specification of a language, so that subsequent files are handled according to their file name suffixes (as they are if -x has not been used at all).

If you only want some of the stages of compilation, you can use -x (or filename suffixes) to tell gcc where to start, and one of the options -c, -S, or -E to say where gcc is to stop. Note that some combinations (for example, -x cpp-output -E) instruct gcc to do nothing at all.

-c

Compile or assemble the source files, but do not link. The linking stage simply is not done. The ultimate output is in the form of an object file for each source file.

By default, the object file name for a source file is made by replacing the suffix .c, .i, .s, etc., with .o.

Unrecognized input files, not requiring compilation or assembly, are ignored.

-S

Stop after the stage of compilation proper; do not assemble. The output is in the form of an assembler code file for each non-assembler input file specified.

By default, the assembler file name for a source file is made by replacing the suffix .c, .i, etc., with .s.

Input files that don’t require compilation are ignored.

-E

Stop after the preprocessing stage; do not run the compiler proper. The output is in the form of preprocessed source code, which is sent to the standard output.

Input files that don’t require preprocessing are ignored.

-o file

Place the primary output in file file. This applies to whatever sort of output is being produced, whether it be an executable file, an object file, an assembler file or preprocessed C code.

If -o is not specified, the default is to put an executable file in a.out, the object file for source.suffix in source.o, its assembler file in source.s, a precompiled header file in source.suffix.gch, and all preprocessed C source on standard output.

Though -o names only the primary output, it also affects the naming of auxiliary and dump outputs. See the examples below. Unless overridden, both auxiliary outputs and dump outputs are placed in the same directory as the primary output. In auxiliary outputs, the suffix of the input file is replaced with that of the auxiliary output file type; in dump outputs, the suffix of the dump file is appended to the input file suffix. In compilation commands, the base name of both auxiliary and dump outputs is that of the primary output; in compile and link commands, the primary output name, minus the executable suffix, is combined with the input file name. If both share the same base name, disregarding the suffix, the result of the combination is that base name, otherwise, they are concatenated, separated by a dash.

 gcc -c foo.c ...

will use foo.o as the primary output, and place aux outputs and dumps next to it, e.g., aux file foo.dwo for -gsplit-dwarf, and dump file foo.c.???r.final for -fdump-rtl-final.

If a non-linker output file is explicitly specified, aux and dump files by default take the same base name:

 gcc -c foo.c -o dir/foobar.o ...

will name aux outputs dir/foobar.* and dump outputs dir/foobar.c.*.

A linker output will instead prefix aux and dump outputs:

 gcc foo.c bar.c -o dir/foobar ...

will generally name aux outputs dir/foobar-foo.* and dir/foobar-bar.*, and dump outputs dir/foobar-foo.c.* and dir/foobar-bar.c.*.

The one exception to the above is when the executable shares the base name with the single input:

 gcc foo.c -o dir/foo ...

in which case aux outputs are named dir/foo.* and dump outputs named dir/foo.c.*.

The location and the names of auxiliary and dump outputs can be adjusted by the options -dumpbase, -dumpbase-ext, -dumpdir, -save-temps=cwd, and -save-temps=obj.

-dumpbase dumpbase

This option sets the base name for auxiliary and dump output files. It does not affect the name of the primary output file. Intermediate outputs, when preserved, are not regarded as primary outputs, but as auxiliary outputs:

 gcc -save-temps -S foo.c

saves the (no longer) temporary preprocessed file in foo.i, and then compiles to the (implied) output file foo.s, whereas:

 gcc -save-temps -dumpbase save-foo -c foo.c

preprocesses to in save-foo.i, compiles to save-foo.s (now an intermediate, thus auxiliary output), and then assembles to the (implied) output file foo.o.

Absent this option, dump and aux files take their names from the input file, or from the (non-linker) output file, if one is explicitly specified: dump output files (e.g. those requested by -fdump-* options) with the input name suffix, and aux output files (those requested by other non-dump options, e.g. "-save-temps", "-gsplit-dwarf", "-fcallgraph-info") without it.

Similar suffix differentiation of dump and aux outputs can be attained for explicitly-given -dumpbase basename.suf by also specifying -dumpbase-ext .suf.

If dumpbase is explicitly specified with any directory component, any dumppfx specification (e.g. -dumpdir or -save-temps=*) is ignored, and instead of appending to it, dumpbase fully overrides it:

 gcc foo.c -c -o dir/foo.o -dumpbase alt/foo \
 -dumpdir pfx- -save-temps=cwd ...

creates auxiliary and dump outputs named alt/foo.*, disregarding dir/ in -o, the ./ prefix implied by -save-temps=cwd, and pfx- in -dumpdir.

When -dumpbase is specified in a command that compiles multiple inputs, or that compiles and then links, it may be combined with dumppfx, as specified under -dumpdir. Then, each input file is compiled using the combined dumppfx, and default values for dumpbase and auxdropsuf are computed for each input file:

 gcc foo.c bar.c -c -dumpbase main ...

creates foo.o and bar.o as primary outputs, and avoids overwriting the auxiliary and dump outputs by using the dumpbase as a prefix, creating auxiliary and dump outputs named main-foo.* and main-bar.*.

An empty string specified as dumpbase avoids the influence of the output basename in the naming of auxiliary and dump outputs during compilation, computing default values :

 gcc -c foo.c -o dir/foobar.o -dumpbase " ...

will name aux outputs dir/foo.* and dump outputs dir/foo.c.*. Note how their basenames are taken from the input name, but the directory still defaults to that of the output.

The empty-string dumpbase does not prevent the use of the output basename for outputs during linking:

 gcc foo.c bar.c -o dir/foobar -dumpbase " -flto ...

The compilation of the source files will name auxiliary outputs dir/foo.* and dir/bar.*, and dump outputs dir/foo.c.* and dir/bar.c.*. LTO recompilation during linking will use dir/foobar. as the prefix for dumps and auxiliary files.

-dumpbase-ext auxdropsuf

When forming the name of an auxiliary (but not a dump) output file, drop trailing auxdropsuf from dumpbase before appending any suffixes. If not specified, this option defaults to the suffix of a default dumpbase, i.e., the suffix of the input file when -dumpbase is not present in the command line, or dumpbase is combined with dumppfx.

 gcc foo.c -c -o dir/foo.o -dumpbase x-foo.c -dumpbase-ext .c ...

creates dir/foo.o as the main output, and generates auxiliary outputs in dir/x-foo.*, taking the location of the primary output, and dropping the .c suffix from the dumpbase. Dump outputs retain the suffix: dir/x-foo.c.*.

This option is disregarded if it does not match the suffix of a specified dumpbase, except as an alternative to the executable suffix when appending the linker output base name to dumppfx, as specified below:

 gcc foo.c bar.c -o main.out -dumpbase-ext .out ...

creates main.out as the primary output, and avoids overwriting the auxiliary and dump outputs by using the executable name minus auxdropsuf as a prefix, creating auxiliary outputs named main-foo.* and main-bar.* and dump outputs named main-foo.c.* and main-bar.c.*.

-dumpdir dumppfx

When forming the name of an auxiliary or dump output file, use dumppfx as a prefix:

 gcc -dumpdir pfx- -c foo.c ...

creates foo.o as the primary output, and auxiliary outputs named pfx-foo.*, combining the given dumppfx with the default dumpbase derived from the default primary output, derived in turn from the input name. Dump outputs also take the input name suffix: pfx-foo.c.*.

If dumppfx is to be used as a directory name, it must end with a directory separator:

 gcc -dumpdir dir/ -c foo.c -o obj/bar.o ...

creates obj/bar.o as the primary output, and auxiliary outputs named dir/bar.*, combining the given dumppfx with the default dumpbase derived from the primary output name. Dump outputs also take the input name suffix: dir/bar.c.*.

It defaults to the location of the output file, unless the output file is a special file like "/dev/null". Options -save-temps=cwd and -save-temps=obj override this default, just like an explicit -dumpdir option. In case multiple such options are given, the last one prevails:

 gcc -dumpdir pfx- -c foo.c -save-temps=obj ...

outputs foo.o, with auxiliary outputs named foo.* because -save-temps=* overrides the dumppfx given by the earlier -dumpdir option. It does not matter that =obj is the default for -save-temps, nor that the output directory is implicitly the current directory. Dump outputs are named foo.c.*.

When compiling from multiple input files, if -dumpbase is specified, dumpbase, minus a auxdropsuf suffix, and a dash are appended to (or override, if containing any directory components) an explicit or defaulted dumppfx, so that each of the multiple compilations gets differently-named aux and dump outputs.

 gcc foo.c bar.c -c -dumpdir dir/pfx- -dumpbase main ...

outputs auxiliary dumps to dir/pfx-main-foo.* and dir/pfx-main-bar.*, appending dumpbase– to dumppfx. Dump outputs retain the input file suffix: dir/pfx-main-foo.c.* and dir/pfx-main-bar.c.*, respectively. Contrast with the single-input compilation:

 gcc foo.c -c -dumpdir dir/pfx- -dumpbase main ...

that, applying -dumpbase to a single source, does not compute and append a separate dumpbase per input file. Its auxiliary and dump outputs go in dir/pfx-main.*.

When compiling and then linking from multiple input files, a defaulted or explicitly specified dumppfx also undergoes the dumpbase– transformation above (e.g. the compilation of foo.c and bar.c above, but without -c). If neither -dumpdir nor -dumpbase are given, the linker output base name, minus auxdropsuf, if specified, or the executable suffix otherwise, plus a dash is appended to the default dumppfx instead. Note, however, that unlike earlier cases of linking:

 gcc foo.c bar.c -dumpdir dir/pfx- -o main ...

does not append the output name main to dumppfx, because -dumpdir is explicitly specified. The goal is that the explicitly-specified dumppfx may contain the specified output name as part of the prefix, if desired; only an explicitly-specified -dumpbase would be combined with it, in order to avoid simply discarding a meaningful option.

When compiling and then linking from a single input file, the linker output base name will only be appended to the default dumppfx as above if it does not share the base name with the single input file name. This has been covered in single-input linking cases above, but not with an explicit -dumpdir that inhibits the combination, even if overridden by -save-temps=*:

 gcc foo.c -dumpdir alt/pfx- -o dir/main.exe -save-temps=cwd ...

Auxiliary outputs are named foo.*, and dump outputs foo.c.*, in the current working directory as ultimately requested by -save-temps=cwd.

Summing it all up for an intuitive though slightly imprecise data flow: the primary output name is broken into a directory part and a basename part; dumppfx is set to the former, unless overridden by -dumpdir or -save-temps=*, and dumpbase is set to the latter, unless overriden by -dumpbase. If there are multiple inputs or linking, this dumpbase may be combined with dumppfx and taken from each input file. Auxiliary output names for each input are formed by combining dumppfx, dumpbase minus suffix, and the auxiliary output suffix; dump output names are only different in that the suffix from dumpbase is retained.

When it comes to auxiliary and dump outputs created during LTO recompilation, a combination of dumppfx and dumpbase, as given or as derived from the linker output name but not from inputs, even in cases in which this combination would not otherwise be used as such, is passed down with a trailing period replacing the compiler-added dash, if any, as a -dumpdir option to lto-wrapper; being involved in linking, this program does not normally get any -dumpbase and -dumpbase-ext, and it ignores them.

When running sub-compilers, lto-wrapper appends LTO stage names to the received dumppfx, ensures it contains a directory component so that it overrides any -dumpdir, and passes that as -dumpbase to sub-compilers.

-v

Print (on standard error output) the commands executed to run the stages of compilation. Also print the version number of the compiler driver program and of the preprocessor and the compiler proper.

-###

Like -v except the commands are not executed and arguments are quoted unless they contain only alphanumeric characters or "./-_". This is useful for shell scripts to capture the driver-generated command lines.

–help

Print (on the standard output) a description of the command-line options understood by gcc. If the -v option is also specified then –help is also passed on to the various processes invoked by gcc, so that they can display the command-line options they accept. If the -Wextra option has also been specified (prior to the –help option), then command-line options that have no documentation associated with them are also displayed.

–target-help

Print (on the standard output) a description of target-specific command-line options for each tool. For some targets extra target-specific information may also be printed.

–help={class|[^]qualifier}[,…]

Print (on the standard output) a description of the command-line options understood by the compiler that fit into all specified classes and qualifiers. These are the supported classes:

optimizers

Display all of the optimization options supported by the compiler.

warnings

Display all of the options controlling warning messages produced by the compiler.

target

Display target-specific options. Unlike the –target-help option however, target-specific options of the linker and assembler are not displayed. This is because those tools do not currently support the extended –help= syntax.

params

Display the values recognized by the –param option.

language

Display the options supported for language, where language is the name of one of the languages supported in this version of GCC. If an option is supported by all languages, one needs to select common class.

common

Display the options that are common to all languages.

These are the supported qualifiers:

undocumented

Display only those options that are undocumented.

joined

Display options taking an argument that appears after an equal sign in the same continuous piece of text, such as: –help=target.

separate

Display options taking an argument that appears as a separate word following the original option, such as: -o output-file.

Thus for example to display all the undocumented target-specific switches supported by the compiler, use:

 --help=target,undocumented

The sense of a qualifier can be inverted by prefixing it with the ^ character, so for example to display all binary warning options (i.e., ones that are either on or off and that do not take an argument) that have a description, use:

 --help=warnings,^joined,^undocumented

The argument to –help= should not consist solely of inverted qualifiers.

Combining several classes is possible, although this usually restricts the output so much that there is nothing to display. One case where it does work, however, is when one of the classes is target. For example, to display all the target-specific optimization options, use:

 --help=target,optimizers

The –help= option can be repeated on the command line. Each successive use displays its requested class of options, skipping those that have already been displayed. If –help is also specified anywhere on the command line then this takes precedence over any –help= option.

If the -Q option appears on the command line before the –help= option, then the descriptive text displayed by –help= is changed. Instead of describing the displayed options, an indication is given as to whether the option is enabled, disabled or set to a specific value (assuming that the compiler knows this at the point where the –help= option is used).

Here is a truncated example from the ARM port of gcc:

 % gcc -Q -mabi=2 --help=target -c
 The following options are target specific:
 -mabi= 2
 -mabort-on-noreturn [disabled]
 -mapcs [disabled]

The output is sensitive to the effects of previous command-line options, so for example it is possible to find out which optimizations are enabled at -O2 by using:

 -Q -O2 --help=optimizers

Alternatively you can discover which binary optimizations are enabled by -O3 by using:

 gcc -c -Q -O3 --help=optimizers > /tmp/O3-opts
 gcc -c -Q -O2 --help=optimizers > /tmp/O2-opts
 diff /tmp/O2-opts /tmp/O3-opts | grep enabled

–version

Display the version number and copyrights of the invoked GCC.

-pass-exit-codes

Normally the gcc program exits with the code of 1 if any phase of the compiler returns a non-success return code. If you specify -pass-exit-codes, the gcc program instead returns with the numerically highest error produced by any phase returning an error indication. The C, C++, and Fortran front ends return 4 if an internal compiler error is encountered.

-pipe

Use pipes rather than temporary files for communication between the various stages of compilation. This fails to work on some systems where the assembler is unable to read from a pipe; but the GNU assembler has no trouble.

-specs=file

Process file after the compiler reads in the standard specs file, in order to override the defaults which the gcc driver program uses when determining what switches to pass to cc1, cc1plus, as, ld, etc. More than one -specs=file can be specified on the command line, and they are processed in order, from left to right.

-wrapper

Invoke all subcommands under a wrapper program. The name of the wrapper program and its parameters are passed as a comma separated list.

 gcc -c t.c -wrapper gdb,--args

This invokes all subprograms of gcc under gdb –args, thus the invocation of cc1 is gdb –args cc1 ….

-ffile-prefix-map=old=new

When compiling files residing in directory old, record any references to them in the result of the compilation as if the files resided in directory new instead. Specifying this option is equivalent to specifying all the individual -f*-prefix-map options. This can be used to make reproducible builds that are location independent. See also -fmacro-prefix-map and -fdebug-prefix-map.

-fplugin=name.so

Load the plugin code in file name.so, assumed to be a shared object to be dlopen’d by the compiler. The base name of the shared object file is used to identify the plugin for the purposes of argument parsing (See -fplugin-arg-name–key=value below). Each plugin should define the callback functions specified in the Plugins API.

-fplugin-arg-name–key=value

Define an argument called key with a value of value for the plugin called name.

-fdump-ada-spec[-slim]

For C and C++ source and include files, generate corresponding Ada specs.

-fada-spec-parent=unit

In conjunction with -fdump-ada-spec[-slim] above, generate Ada specs as child units of parent unit.

-fdump-go-spec=file

For input files in any language, generate corresponding Go declarations in file. This generates Go "const", "type", "var", and "func" declarations which may be a useful way to start writing a Go interface to code written in some other language.

@file

Read command-line options from file. The options read are inserted in place of the original @file option. If file does not exist, or cannot be read, then the option will be treated literally, and not removed.

Options in file are separated by whitespace. A whitespace character may be included in an option by surrounding the entire option in either single or double quotes. Any character (including a backslash) may be included by prefixing the character to be included with a backslash. The file may itself contain additional @file options; any such options will be processed recursively.

Compiling C++ Programs

C++ source files conventionally use one of the suffixes .C, .cc, .cpp, .CPP, .c++, .cp, or .cxx; C++ header files often use .hh, .hpp, .H, or (for shared template code) .tcc; and preprocessed C++ files use the suffix .ii. GCC recognizes files with these names and compiles them as C++ programs even if you call the compiler the same way as for compiling C programs (usually with the name gcc).

However, the use of gcc does not add the C++ library. g++ is a program that calls GCC and automatically specifies linking against the C++ library. It treats .c, .h and .i files as C++ source files instead of C source files unless -x is used. This program is also useful when precompiling a C header file with a .h extension for use in C++ compilations. On many systems, g++ is also installed with the name c++.

When you compile C++ programs, you may specify many of the same command-line options that you use for compiling programs in any language; or command-line options meaningful for C and related languages; or options that are meaningful only for C++ programs.

Options Controlling C Dialect

The following options control the dialect of C (or languages derived from C, such as C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++) that the compiler accepts:

-ansi

In C mode, this is equivalent to -std=c90. In C++ mode, it is equivalent to -std=c++98.

This turns off certain features of GCC that are incompatible with ISO C90 (when compiling C code), or of standard C++ (when compiling C++ code), such as the "asm" and "typeof" keywords, and predefined macros such as "unix" and "vax" that identify the type of system you are using. It also enables the undesirable and rarely used ISO trigraph feature. For the C compiler, it disables recognition of C++ style // comments as well as the "inline" keyword.

The alternate keywords "__asm__", "__extension__", "__inline__" and "__typeof__" continue to work despite -ansi. You would not want to use them in an ISO C program, of course, but it is useful to put them in header files that might be included in compilations done with -ansi. Alternate predefined macros such as "__unix__" and "__vax__" are also available, with or without -ansi.

The -ansi option does not cause non-ISO programs to be rejected gratuitously. For that, -Wpedantic is required in addition to -ansi.

The macro "__STRICT_ANSI__" is predefined when the -ansi option is used. Some header files may notice this macro and refrain from declaring certain functions or defining certain macros that the ISO standard doesn’t call for; this is to avoid interfering with any programs that might use these names for other things.

Functions that are normally built in but do not have semantics defined by ISO C (such as "alloca" and "ffs") are not built-in functions when -ansi is used.

-std=

Determine the language standard. This option is currently only supported when compiling C or C++.

The compiler can accept several base standards, such as c90 or c++98, and GNU dialects of those standards, such as gnu90 or gnu++98. When a base standard is specified, the compiler accepts all programs following that standard plus those using GNU extensions that do not contradict it. For example, -std=c90 turns off certain features of GCC that are incompatible with ISO C90, such as the "asm" and "typeof" keywords, but not other GNU extensions that do not have a meaning in ISO C90, such as omitting the middle term of a "?:" expression. On the other hand, when a GNU dialect of a standard is specified, all features supported by the compiler are enabled, even when those features change the meaning of the base standard. As a result, some strict-conforming programs may be rejected. The particular standard is used by -Wpedantic to identify which features are GNU extensions given that version of the standard. For example -std=gnu90 -Wpedantic warns about C++ style // comments, while -std=gnu99 -Wpedantic does not.

A value for this option must be provided; possible values are

c90

c89

iso9899:1990

Support all ISO C90 programs (certain GNU extensions that conflict with ISO C90 are disabled). Same as -ansi for C code.

iso9899:199409

ISO C90 as modified in amendment 1.

c99

c9x

iso9899:1999

iso9899:199x

ISO C99. This standard is substantially completely supported, modulo bugs and floating-point issues (mainly but not entirely relating to optional C99 features from Annexes F and G). See <http://gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html> for more information. The names c9x and iso9899:199x are deprecated.

c11

c1x

iso9899:2011

ISO C11, the 2011 revision of the ISO C standard. This standard is substantially completely supported, modulo bugs, floating-point issues (mainly but not entirely relating to optional C11 features from Annexes F and G) and the optional Annexes K (Bounds-checking interfaces) and L (Analyzability). The name c1x is deprecated.

c17

c18

iso9899:2017

iso9899:2018

ISO C17, the 2017 revision of the ISO C standard (published in 2018). This standard is same as C11 except for corrections of defects (all of which are also applied with -std=c11) and a new value of "__STDC_VERSION__", and so is supported to the same extent as C11.

c2x

The next version of the ISO C standard, still under development. The support for this version is experimental and incomplete.

gnu90

gnu89

GNU dialect of ISO C90 (including some C99 features).

gnu99

gnu9x

GNU dialect of ISO C99. The name gnu9x is deprecated.

gnu11

gnu1x

GNU dialect of ISO C11. The name gnu1x is deprecated.

gnu17

gnu18

GNU dialect of ISO C17. This is the default for C code.

gnu2x

The next version of the ISO C standard, still under development, plus GNU extensions. The support for this version is experimental and incomplete.

c++98

c++03

The 1998 ISO C++ standard plus the 2003 technical corrigendum and some additional defect reports. Same as -ansi for C++ code.

gnu++98

gnu++03

GNU dialect of -std=c++98.

c++11

c++0x

The 2011 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name c++0x is deprecated.

gnu++11

gnu++0x

GNU dialect of -std=c++11. The name gnu++0x is deprecated.

c++14

c++1y

The 2014 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name c++1y is deprecated.

gnu++14

gnu++1y

GNU dialect of -std=c++14. The name gnu++1y is deprecated.

c++17

c++1z

The 2017 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name c++1z is deprecated.

gnu++17

gnu++1z

GNU dialect of -std=c++17. This is the default for C++ code. The name gnu++1z is deprecated.

c++20

c++2a

The 2020 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. Support is experimental, and could change in incompatible ways in future releases. The name c++2a is deprecated.

gnu++20

gnu++2a

GNU dialect of -std=c++20. Support is experimental, and could change in incompatible ways in future releases. The name gnu++2a is deprecated.

c++2b

c++23

The next revision of the ISO C++ standard, planned for 2023. Support is highly experimental, and will almost certainly change in incompatible ways in future releases.

gnu++2b

gnu++23

GNU dialect of -std=c++2b. Support is highly experimental, and will almost certainly change in incompatible ways in future releases.

-fgnu89-inline

The option -fgnu89-inline tells GCC to use the traditional GNU semantics for "inline" functions when in C99 mode.

Using this option is roughly equivalent to adding the "gnu_inline" function attribute to all inline functions.

The option -fno-gnu89-inline explicitly tells GCC to use the C99 semantics for "inline" when in C99 or gnu99 mode (i.e., it specifies the default behavior). This option is not supported in -std=c90 or -std=gnu90 mode.

The preprocessor macros "__GNUC_GNU_INLINE__" and "__GNUC_STDC_INLINE__" may be used to check which semantics are in effect for "inline" functions.

-fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=style

ISO/IEC TS 18661-3 defines new permissible values for "FLT_EVAL_METHOD" that indicate that operations and constants with a semantic type that is an interchange or extended format should be evaluated to the precision and range of that type. These new values are a superset of those permitted under C99/C11, which does not specify the meaning of other positive values of "FLT_EVAL_METHOD". As such, code conforming to C11 may not have been written expecting the possibility of the new values.

-fpermitted-flt-eval-methods specifies whether the compiler should allow only the values of "FLT_EVAL_METHOD" specified in C99/C11, or the extended set of values specified in ISO/IEC TS 18661-3.

style is either "c11" or "ts-18661-3" as appropriate.

The default when in a standards compliant mode (-std=c11 or similar) is -fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=c11. The default when in a GNU dialect (-std=gnu11 or similar) is -fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=ts-18661-3.

-aux-info filename

Output to the given filename prototyped declarations for all functions declared and/or defined in a translation unit, including those in header files. This option is silently ignored in any language other than C.

Besides declarations, the file indicates, in comments, the origin of each declaration (source file and line), whether the declaration was implicit, prototyped or unprototyped (I, N for new or O for old, respectively, in the first character after the line number and the colon), and whether it came from a declaration or a definition (C or F, respectively, in the following character). In the case of function definitions, a K&R-style list of arguments followed by their declarations is also provided, inside comments, after the declaration.

-fallow-parameterless-variadic-functions

Accept variadic functions without named parameters.

Although it is possible to define such a function, this is not very useful as it is not possible to read the arguments. This is only supported for C as this construct is allowed by C++.

-fno-asm

Do not recognize "asm", "inline" or "typeof" as a keyword, so that code can use these words as identifiers. You can use the keywords "__asm__", "__inline__" and "__typeof__" instead. -ansi implies -fno-asm.

In C++, this switch only affects the "typeof" keyword, since "asm" and "inline" are standard keywords. You may want to use the -fno-gnu-keywords flag instead, which has the same effect. In C99 mode (-std=c99 or -std=gnu99), this switch only affects the "asm" and "typeof" keywords, since "inline" is a standard keyword in ISO C99.

-fno-builtin

-fno-builtin-function

Don’t recognize built-in functions that do not begin with __builtin_ as prefix.

GCC normally generates special code to handle certain built-in functions more efficiently; for instance, calls to "alloca" may become single instructions which adjust the stack directly, and calls to "memcpy" may become inline copy loops. The resulting code is often both smaller and faster, but since the function calls no longer appear as such, you cannot set a breakpoint on those calls, nor can you change the behavior of the functions by linking with a different library. In addition, when a function is recognized as a built-in function, GCC may use information about that function to warn about problems with calls to that function, or to generate more efficient code, even if the resulting code still contains calls to that function. For example, warnings are given with -Wformat for bad calls to "printf" when "printf" is built in and "strlen" is known not to modify global memory.

With the -fno-builtin-function option only the built-in function function is disabled. function must not begin with __builtin_. If a function is named that is not built-in in this version of GCC, this option is ignored. There is no corresponding -fbuiltin-function option; if you wish to enable built-in functions selectively when using -fno-builtin or -ffreestanding, you may define macros such as:

 #define abs(n) __builtin_abs ((n))
 #define strcpy(d, s) __builtin_strcpy ((d), (s))

-fgimple

Enable parsing of function definitions marked with "__GIMPLE". This is an experimental feature that allows unit testing of GIMPLE passes.

-fhosted

Assert that compilation targets a hosted environment. This implies -fbuiltin. A hosted environment is one in which the entire standard library is available, and in which "main" has a return type of "int". Examples are nearly everything except a kernel. This is equivalent to -fno-freestanding.

-ffreestanding

Assert that compilation targets a freestanding environment. This implies -fno-builtin. A freestanding environment is one in which the standard library may not exist, and program startup may not necessarily be at "main". The most obvious example is an OS kernel. This is equivalent to -fno-hosted.

-fopenacc

Enable handling of OpenACC directives "#pragma acc" in C/C++ and "!$acc" in Fortran. When -fopenacc is specified, the compiler generates accelerated code according to the OpenACC Application Programming Interface v2.6 <https://www.openacc.org>. This option implies -pthread, and thus is only supported on targets that have support for -pthread.

-fopenacc-dim=geom

Specify default compute dimensions for parallel offload regions that do not explicitly specify. The geom value is a triple of ‘:’-separated sizes, in order ‘gang’, ‘worker’ and, ‘vector’. A size can be omitted, to use a target-specific default value.

-fopenmp

Enable handling of OpenMP directives "#pragma omp" in C/C++ and "!$omp" in Fortran. When -fopenmp is specified, the compiler generates parallel code according to the OpenMP Application Program Interface v4.5 <https://www.openmp.org>. This option implies -pthread, and thus is only supported on targets that have support for -pthread. -fopenmp implies -fopenmp-simd.

-fopenmp-simd

Enable handling of OpenMP’s SIMD directives with "#pragma omp" in C/C++ and "!$omp" in Fortran. Other OpenMP directives are ignored.

-fgnu-tm

When the option -fgnu-tm is specified, the compiler generates code for the Linux variant of Intel’s current Transactional Memory ABI specification document (Revision 1.1, May 6 2009). This is an experimental feature whose interface may change in future versions of GCC, as the official specification changes. Please note that not all architectures are supported for this feature.

For more information on GCC‘s support for transactional memory,

Note that the transactional memory feature is not supported with non-call exceptions (-fnon-call-exceptions).

-fms-extensions

Accept some non-standard constructs used in Microsoft header files.

In C++ code, this allows member names in structures to be similar to previous types declarations.

 typedef int UOW;
 struct ABC {
 UOW UOW;
 };

Some cases of unnamed fields in structures and unions are only accepted with this option.

Note that this option is off for all targets except for x86 targets using ms-abi.

-fplan9-extensions

Accept some non-standard constructs used in Plan 9 code.

This enables -fms-extensions, permits passing pointers to structures with anonymous fields to functions that expect pointers to elements of the type of the field, and permits referring to anonymous fields declared using a typedef. This is only supported for C, not C++.

-fcond-mismatch

Allow conditional expressions with mismatched types in the second and third arguments. The value of such an expression is void. This option is not supported for C++.

-flax-vector-conversions

Allow implicit conversions between vectors with differing numbers of elements and/or incompatible element types. This option should not be used for new code.

-funsigned-char

Let the type "char" be unsigned, like "unsigned char".

Each kind of machine has a default for what "char" should be. It is either like "unsigned char" by default or like "signed char" by default.

Ideally, a portable program should always use "signed char" or "unsigned char" when it depends on the signedness of an object. But many programs have been written to use plain "char" and expect it to be signed, or expect it to be unsigned, depending on the machines they were written for. This option, and its inverse, let you make such a program work with the opposite default.

The type "char" is always a distinct type from each of "signed char" or "unsigned char", even though its behavior is always just like one of those two.

-fsigned-char

Let the type "char" be signed, like "signed char".

Note that this is equivalent to -fno-unsigned-char, which is the negative form of -funsigned-char. Likewise, the option -fno-signed-char is equivalent to -funsigned-char.

-fsigned-bitfields

-funsigned-bitfields

-fno-signed-bitfields

-fno-unsigned-bitfields

These options control whether a bit-field is signed or unsigned, when the declaration does not use either "signed" or "unsigned". By default, such a bit-field is signed, because this is consistent: the basic integer types such as "int" are signed types.

-fsso-struct=endianness

Set the default scalar storage order of structures and unions to the specified endianness. The accepted values are big-endian, little-endian and native for the native endianness of the target (the default). This option is not supported for C++.

Warning: the -fsso-struct switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without it if the specified endianness is not the native endianness of the target.

Options Controlling C++ Dialect

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 -fstrict-enums -O -c firstClass.C

In this example, only -fstrict-enums is an option meant only for C++ programs; you can use the other options with any language supported by GCC.

Some options for compiling C programs, such as -std, are also relevant for C++ programs.

Here is a list of options that are only for compiling C++ programs:

-fabi-version=n

Use version n of the C++ ABI. The default is version 0.

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".

Version 10, which first appeared in G++ 6.1, adds mangling of attributes that affect type identity, such as ia32 calling convention attributes (e.g. stdcall).

Version 11, which first appeared in G++ 7, corrects the mangling of sizeof… expressions and operator names. For multiple entities with the same name within a function, that are declared in different scopes, the mangling now changes starting with the twelfth occurrence. It also implies -fnew-inheriting-ctors.

Version 12, which first appeared in G++ 8, corrects the calling conventions for empty classes on the x86_64 target and for classes with only deleted copy/move constructors. It accidentally changes the calling convention for classes with a deleted copy constructor and a trivial move constructor.

Version 13, which first appeared in G++ 8.2, fixes the accidental change in version 12.

Version 14, which first appeared in G++ 10, corrects the mangling of the nullptr expression.

Version 15, which first appeared in G++ 11, changes the mangling of "__alignof__" to be distinct from that of "alignof", and dependent operator names.

See also -Wabi.

-fabi-compat-version=n

On targets that support strong aliases, G++ works around mangling changes by creating an alias with the correct mangled name when defining a symbol with an incorrect mangled name. This switch specifies which ABI version to use for the alias.

With -fabi-version=0 (the default), this defaults to 11 (GCC 7 compatibility). If another ABI version is explicitly selected, this defaults to 0. For compatibility with GCC versions 3.2 through 4.9, use -fabi-compat-version=2.

If this option is not provided but -Wabi=n is, that version is used for compatibility aliases. If this option is provided along with -Wabi (without the version), the version from this option is used for the warning.

-fno-access-control

Turn off all access checking. This switch is mainly useful for working around bugs in the access control code.

-faligned-new

Enable support for C++17 "new" of types that require more alignment than "void* ::operator new(std::size_t)" provides. A numeric argument such as "-faligned-new=32" can be used to specify how much alignment (in bytes) is provided by that function, but few users will need to override the default of "alignof(std::max_align_t)".

This flag is enabled by default for -std=c++17.

-fchar8_t

-fno-char8_t

Enable support for "char8_t" as adopted for C++20. This includes the addition of a new "char8_t" fundamental type, changes to the types of UTF-8 string and character literals, new signatures for user-defined literals, associated standard library updates, and new "__cpp_char8_t" and "__cpp_lib_char8_t" feature test macros.

This option enables functions to be overloaded for ordinary and UTF-8 strings:

 int f(const char *); // #1
 int f(const char8_t *); // #2
 int v1 = f("text"); // Calls #1
 int v2 = f(u8"text"); // Calls #2

and introduces new signatures for user-defined literals:

 int operator""_udl1(char8_t);
 int v3 = u8'x'_udl1;
 int operator""_udl2(const char8_t*, std::size_t);
 int v4 = u8"text"_udl2;
 template<typename T, T...> int operator""_udl3();
 int v5 = u8"text"_udl3;

The change to the types of UTF-8 string and character literals introduces incompatibilities with ISO C++11 and later standards. For example, the following code is well-formed under ISO C++11, but is ill-formed when -fchar8_t is specified.

 char ca[] = u8"xx"; // error: char-array initialized from wide
 // string
 const char *cp = u8"xx";// error: invalid conversion from
 // `const char8_t*' to `const char*'
 int f(const char*);
 auto v = f(u8"xx"); // error: invalid conversion from
 // `const char8_t*' to `const char*'
 std::string s{u8"xx"}; // error: no matching function for call to
 // `std::basic_string<char>::basic_string()'
 using namespace std::literals;
 s = u8"xx"s; // error: conversion from
 // `basic_string<char8_t>' to non-scalar
 // type `basic_string<char>' requested

-fcheck-new

Check that the pointer returned by "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).

-fconcepts

-fconcepts-ts

Below -std=c++20, -fconcepts enables support for the C++ Extensions for Concepts Technical Specification, ISO 19217 (2015).

With -std=c++20 and above, Concepts are part of the language standard, so -fconcepts defaults to on. But the standard specification of Concepts differs significantly from the TS, so some constructs that were allowed in the TS but didn’t make it into the standard can still be enabled by -fconcepts-ts.

-fconstexpr-depth=n

Set the maximum nested evaluation depth for C++11 constexpr functions to n. A limit is needed to detect endless recursion during constant expression evaluation. The minimum specified by the standard is 512.

-fconstexpr-cache-depth=n

Set the maximum level of nested evaluation depth for C++11 constexpr functions that will be cached to n. This is a heuristic that trades off compilation speed (when the cache avoids repeated calculations) against memory consumption (when the cache grows very large from highly recursive evaluations). The default is 8. Very few users are likely to want to adjust it, but if your code does heavy constexpr calculations you might want to experiment to find which value works best for you.

-fconstexpr-loop-limit=n

Set the maximum number of iterations for a loop in C++14 constexpr functions to n. A limit is needed to detect infinite loops during constant expression evaluation. The default is 262144 (1<<18).

-fconstexpr-ops-limit=n

Set the maximum number of operations during a single constexpr evaluation. Even when number of iterations of a single loop is limited with the above limit, if there are several nested loops and each of them has many iterations but still smaller than the above limit, or if in a body of some loop or even outside of a loop too many expressions need to be evaluated, the resulting constexpr evaluation might take too long. The default is 33554432 (1<<25).

-fcoroutines

Enable support for the C++ coroutines extension (experimental).

-fno-elide-constructors

The C++ standard allows an implementation to omit creating a temporary that is only used to initialize another object of the same type. Specifying this option disables that optimization, and forces G++ to call the copy constructor in all cases. This option also causes G++ to call trivial member functions which otherwise would be expanded inline.

In C++17, the compiler is required to omit these temporaries, but this option still affects trivial member functions.

-fno-enforce-eh-specs

Don’t generate code to check for violation of exception specifications at run time. This option violates the C++ standard, but may be useful for reducing code size in production builds, much like defining "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

The C++11 and OpenMP standards allow "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.

-fno-gnu-keywords

Do not recognize "typeof" as a keyword, so that code can use this word as an identifier. You can use the keyword "__typeof__" instead. This option is implied by the strict ISO C++ dialects: -ansi, -std=c++98, -std=c++11, etc.

-fno-implicit-templates

Never emit code for non-inline templates that are instantiated implicitly (i.e. by use); only emit code for explicit instantiations. If you use this option, you must take care to structure your code to include all the necessary explicit instantiations to avoid getting undefined symbols at link time.

-fno-implicit-inline-templates

Don’t emit code for implicit instantiations of inline templates, either. The default is to handle inlines differently so that compiles with and without optimization need the same set of explicit instantiations.

-fno-implement-inlines

To save space, do not emit out-of-line copies of inline functions controlled by "#pragma implementation". This causes linker errors if these functions are not inlined everywhere they are called.

-fmodules-ts

-fno-modules-ts

Enable support for C++20 modules The -fno-modules-ts is usually not needed, as that is the default. Even though this is a C++20 feature, it is not currently implicitly enabled by selecting that standard version.

-fmodule-header

-fmodule-header=user

-fmodule-header=system

Compile a header file to create an importable header unit.

-fmodule-implicit-inline

Member functions defined in their class definitions are not implicitly inline for modular code. This is different to traditional C++ behavior, for good reasons. However, it may result in a difficulty during code porting. This option makes such function definitions implicitly inline. It does however generate an ABI incompatibility, so you must use it everywhere or nowhere. (Such definitions outside of a named module remain implicitly inline, regardless.)

-fno-module-lazy

Disable lazy module importing and module mapper creation.

-fmodule-mapper=[hostname]:port[?ident]

-fmodule-mapper=|program[?ident]args…

-fmodule-mapper==socket[?ident]

-fmodule-mapper=<>[inout][?ident]

-fmodule-mapper=<in>out[?ident]

-fmodule-mapper=file[?ident]

An oracle to query for module name to filename mappings. If unspecified the CXX_MODULE_MAPPER environment variable is used, and if that is unset, an in-process default is provided.

-fmodule-only

Only emit the Compiled Module Interface, inhibiting any object file.

-fms-extensions

Disable Wpedantic warnings about constructs used in MFC, such as implicit int and getting a pointer to member function via non-standard syntax.

-fnew-inheriting-ctors

Enable the P0136 adjustment to the semantics of C++11 constructor inheritance. This is part of C++17 but also considered to be a Defect Report against C++11 and C++14. This flag is enabled by default unless -fabi-version=10 or lower is specified.

-fnew-ttp-matching

Enable the P0522 resolution to Core issue 150, template template parameters and default arguments: this allows a template with default template arguments as an argument for a template template parameter with fewer template parameters. This flag is enabled by default for -std=c++17.

-fno-nonansi-builtins

Disable built-in declarations of functions that are not mandated by ANSI/ISO C. These include "ffs", "alloca", "_exit", "index", "bzero", "conjf", and other related functions.

-fnothrow-opt

Treat a "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

Do not treat the operator name keywords "and", "bitand", "bitor", "compl", "not", "or" and "xor" as synonyms as keywords.

-fno-optional-diags

Disable diagnostics that the standard says a compiler does not need to issue. Currently, the only such diagnostic issued by G++ is the one for a name having multiple meanings within a class.

-fpermissive

Downgrade some diagnostics about nonconformant code from errors to warnings. Thus, using -fpermissive allows some nonconforming code to compile.

-fno-pretty-templates

When an error message refers to a specialization of a function template, the compiler normally prints the signature of the template followed by the template arguments and any typedefs or typenames in the signature (e.g. "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.

-fno-rtti

Disable generation of information about every class with virtual functions for use by the C++ run-time type identification features ("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.

Mixing code compiled with -frtti with that compiled with -fno-rtti may not work. For example, programs may fail to link if a class compiled with -fno-rtti is used as a base for a class compiled with -frtti.

-fsized-deallocation

Enable the built-in global declarations

 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.

-fstrict-enums

Allow the compiler to optimize using the assumption that a value of enumerated type can only be one of the values of the enumeration (as defined in the C++ standard; basically, a value that can be represented in the minimum number of bits needed to represent all the enumerators). This assumption may not be valid if the program uses a cast to convert an arbitrary integer value to the enumerated type.

-fstrong-eval-order

Evaluate member access, array subscripting, and shift expressions in left-to-right order, and evaluate assignment in right-to-left order, as adopted for C++17. Enabled by default with -std=c++17. -fstrong-eval-order=some enables just the ordering of member access and shift expressions, and is the default without -std=c++17.

-ftemplate-backtrace-limit=n

Set the maximum number of template instantiation notes for a single warning or error to n. The default value is 10.

-ftemplate-depth=n

Set the maximum instantiation depth for template classes to n. A limit on the template instantiation depth is needed to detect endless recursions during template class instantiation. ANSI/ISO C++ conforming programs must not rely on a maximum depth greater than 17 (changed to 1024 in C++11). The default value is 900, as the compiler can run out of stack space before hitting 1024 in some situations.

-fno-threadsafe-statics

Do not emit the extra code to use the routines specified in the C++ ABI for thread-safe initialization of local statics. You can use this option to reduce code size slightly in code that doesn’t need to be thread-safe.

-fuse-cxa-atexit

Register destructors for objects with static storage duration with the "__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

Don’t use the "__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

This switch declares that the user does not attempt to compare pointers to inline functions or methods where the addresses of the two functions are taken in different shared objects.

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.

-fvisibility-ms-compat

This flag attempts to use visibility settings to make GCC‘s C++ linkage model compatible with that of Microsoft Visual Studio.

The flag makes these changes to GCC‘s linkage model:

1.

It sets the default visibility to "hidden", like -fvisibility=hidden.

2.

Types, but not their members, are not hidden by default.

3.

The One Definition Rule is relaxed for types without explicit visibility specifications that are defined in more than one shared object: those declarations are permitted if they are permitted when this option is not used.

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.

-fno-weak

Do not use weak symbol support, even if it is provided by the linker. By default, G++ uses weak symbols if they are available. This option exists only for testing, and should not be used by end-users; it results in inferior code and has no benefits. This option may be removed in a future release of G++.

-fext-numeric-literals (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Accept imaginary, fixed-point, or machine-defined literal number suffixes as GNU extensions. When this option is turned off these suffixes are treated as C++11 user-defined literal numeric suffixes. This is on by default for all pre-C++11 dialects and all GNU dialects: -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, …).

-nostdinc++

Do not search for header files in the standard directories specific to C++, but do still search the other standard directories. (This option is used when building the C++ library.)

-flang-info-include-translate

-flang-info-include-translate-not

-flang-info-include-translate=header

Inform of include translation events. The first will note accepted include translations, the second will note declined include translations. The header form will inform of include translations relating to that specific header. If header is of the form "user" or "<system>" it will be resolved to a specific user or system header using the include path.

-flang-info-module-cmi

-flang-info-module-cmi=module

Inform of Compiled Module Interface pathnames. The first will note all read CMI pathnames. The module form will not reading a specific module’s CMI. module may be a named module or a header-unit (the latter indicated by either being a pathname containing directory separators or enclosed in "<>" or "").

-stdlib=libstdc++,libc++

When G++ is configured to support this option, it allows specification of alternate C++ runtime libraries. Two options are available: libstdc++ (the default, native C++ runtime for G++) and libc++ which is the C++ runtime installed on some operating systems (e.g. Darwin versions from Darwin11 onwards). The option switches G++ to use the headers from the specified library and to emit "-lstdc++" or "-lc++" respectively, when a C++ runtime is required for linking.

In addition, these warning options have meanings only for C++ programs:

-Wabi-tag (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a type with an ABI tag is used in a context that does not have that ABI tag. See C++ Attributes for more information about ABI tags.

-Wcomma-subscript (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about uses of a comma expression within a subscripting expression. This usage was deprecated in C++20. However, a comma expression wrapped in "( )" is not deprecated. Example:

 void f(int *a, int b, int c) {
 a[b,c]; // deprecated
 a[(b,c)]; // OK
 }

Enabled by default with -std=c++20.

-Wctad-maybe-unsupported (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when performing class template argument deduction (CTAD) on a type with no explicitly written deduction guides. This warning will point out cases where CTAD succeeded only because the compiler synthesized the implicit deduction guides, which might not be what the programmer intended. Certain style guides allow CTAD only on types that specifically “opt-in”; i.e., on types that are designed to support CTAD. This warning can be suppressed with the following pattern:

 struct allow_ctad_t; // any name works
 template <typename T> struct S {
 S(T) { }
 };
 S(allow_ctad_t) -> S<void>; // guide with incomplete parameter type will never be considered

-Wctor-dtor-privacy (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a class seems unusable because all the constructors or destructors in that class are private, and it has neither friends nor public static member functions. Also warn if there are no non-private methods, and there’s at least one private member function that isn’t a constructor or destructor.

-Wdelete-non-virtual-dtor (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when "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.

-Wdeprecated-copy (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn that the implicit declaration of a copy constructor or copy assignment operator is deprecated if the class has a user-provided copy constructor or copy assignment operator, in C++11 and up. This warning is enabled by -Wextra. With -Wdeprecated-copy-dtor, also deprecate if the class has a user-provided destructor.

-Wno-deprecated-enum-enum-conversion (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Disable the warning about the case when the usual arithmetic conversions are applied on operands where one is of enumeration type and the other is of a different enumeration type. This conversion was deprecated in C++20. For example:

 enum E1 { e };
 enum E2 { f };
 int k = f - e;

-Wdeprecated-enum-enum-conversion is enabled by default with -std=c++20. In pre-C++20 dialects, this warning can be enabled by -Wenum-conversion.

-Wno-deprecated-enum-float-conversion (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Disable the warning about the case when the usual arithmetic conversions are applied on operands where one is of enumeration type and the other is of a floating-point type. This conversion was deprecated in C++20. For example:

 enum E1 { e };
 enum E2 { f };
 bool b = e <= 3.7;

-Wdeprecated-enum-float-conversion is enabled by default with -std=c++20. In pre-C++20 dialects, this warning can be enabled by -Wenum-conversion.

-Wno-init-list-lifetime (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn about uses of "std::initializer_list" that are likely to result in dangling pointers. Since the underlying array for an "initializer_list" is handled like a normal C++ temporary object, it is easy to inadvertently keep a pointer to the array past the end of the array’s lifetime. For example:

*

If a function returns a temporary "initializer_list", or a local "initializer_list" variable, the array’s lifetime ends at the end of the return statement, so the value returned has a dangling pointer.

*

If a new-expression creates an "initializer_list", the array only lives until the end of the enclosing full-expression, so the "initializer_list" in the heap has a dangling pointer.

*

When an "initializer_list" variable is assigned from a brace-enclosed initializer list, the temporary array created for the right side of the assignment only lives until the end of the full-expression, so at the next statement the "initializer_list" variable has a dangling pointer.

 // li's initial underlying array lives as long as li
 std::initializer_list<int> li = { 1,2,3 };
 // assignment changes li to point to a temporary array
 li = { 4, 5 };
 // now the temporary is gone and li has a dangling pointer
 int i = li.begin()[0] // undefined behavior

*

When a list constructor stores the "begin" pointer from the "initializer_list" argument, this doesn’t extend the lifetime of the array, so if a class variable is constructed from a temporary "initializer_list", the pointer is left dangling by the end of the variable declaration statement.

-Winvalid-imported-macros

Verify all imported macro definitions are valid at the end of compilation. This is not enabled by default, as it requires additional processing to determine. It may be useful when preparing sets of header-units to ensure consistent macros.

-Wno-literal-suffix (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn when a string or character literal is followed by a ud-suffix which does not begin with an underscore. As a conforming extension, GCC treats such suffixes as separate preprocessing tokens in order to maintain backwards compatibility with code that uses formatting macros from "<inttypes.h>". For example:

 #define __STDC_FORMAT_MACROS
 #include <inttypes.h>
 #include <stdio.h>
 
 int main() {
 int64_t i64 = 123;
 printf("My int64: %" PRId64"
", i64);
 }

In this case, "PRId64" is treated as a separate preprocessing token.

This option also controls warnings when a user-defined literal operator is declared with a literal suffix identifier that doesn’t begin with an underscore. Literal suffix identifiers that don’t begin with an underscore are reserved for future standardization.

These warnings are enabled by default.

-Wno-narrowing (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

For C++11 and later standards, narrowing conversions are diagnosed by default, as required by the standard. A narrowing conversion from a constant produces an error, and a narrowing conversion from a non-constant produces a warning, but -Wno-narrowing suppresses the diagnostic. Note that this does not affect the meaning of well-formed code; narrowing conversions are still considered ill-formed in SFINAE contexts.

With -Wnarrowing in C++98, warn when a narrowing conversion prohibited by C++11 occurs within { }, e.g.

 int i = { 2.2 }; // error: narrowing from double to int

This flag is included in -Wall and -Wc++11-compat.

-Wnoexcept (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a noexcept-expression evaluates to false because of a call to a function that does not have a non-throwing exception specification (i.e. "throw()" or "noexcept") but is known by the compiler to never throw an exception.

-Wnoexcept-type (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn if the C++17 feature making "noexcept" part of a function type changes the mangled name of a symbol relative to C++14. Enabled by -Wabi and -Wc++17-compat.

As an example:

 template <class T> void f(T t) { t(); };
 void g() noexcept;
 void h() { f(g); }

In C++14, "f" calls "f<void(*)()>", but in C++17 it calls "f<void(*)()noexcept>".

-Wclass-memaccess (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when the destination of a call to a raw memory function such as "memset" or "memcpy" is an object of class type, and when writing into such an object might bypass the class non-trivial or deleted constructor or copy assignment, violate const-correctness or encapsulation, or corrupt virtual table pointers. Modifying the representation of such objects may violate invariants maintained by member functions of the class. For example, the call to "memset" below is undefined because it modifies a non-trivial class object and is, therefore, diagnosed. The safe way to either initialize or clear the storage of objects of such types is by using the appropriate constructor or assignment operator, if one is available.

 std::string str = "abc";
 memset (&str, 0, sizeof str);

The -Wclass-memaccess option is enabled by -Wall. Explicitly casting the pointer to the class object to "void *" or to a type that can be safely accessed by the raw memory function suppresses the warning.

-Wnon-virtual-dtor (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a class has virtual functions and an accessible non-virtual destructor itself or in an accessible polymorphic base class, in which case it is possible but unsafe to delete an instance of a derived class through a pointer to the class itself or base class. This warning is automatically enabled if -Weffc++ is specified.

-Wregister (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn on uses of the "register" storage class specifier, except when it is part of the GNU Explicit Register Variables extension. The use of the "register" keyword as storage class specifier has been deprecated in C++11 and removed in C++17. Enabled by default with -std=c++17.

-Wreorder (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when the order of member initializers given in the code does not match the order in which they must be executed. For instance:

 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.

-Wno-pessimizing-move (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

This warning warns when a call to "std::move" prevents copy elision. A typical scenario when copy elision can occur is when returning in a function with a class return type, when the expression being returned is the name of a non-volatile automatic object, and is not a function parameter, and has the same type as the function return type.

 struct T {
 ...
 };
 T fn()
 {
 T t;
 ...
 return std::move (t);
 }

But in this example, the "std::move" call prevents copy elision.

This warning is enabled by -Wall.

-Wno-redundant-move (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

This warning warns about redundant calls to "std::move"; that is, when a move operation would have been performed even without the "std::move" call. This happens because the compiler is forced to treat the object as if it were an rvalue in certain situations such as returning a local variable, where copy elision isn’t applicable. Consider:

 struct T {
 ...
 };
 T fn(T t)
 {
 ...
 return std::move (t);
 }

Here, the "std::move" call is redundant. Because G++ implements Core Issue 1579, another example is:

 struct T { // convertible to U
 ...
 };
 struct U {
 ...
 };
 U fn()
 {
 T t;
 ...
 return std::move (t);
 }

In this example, copy elision isn’t applicable because the type of the expression being returned and the function return type differ, yet G++ treats the return value as if it were designated by an rvalue.

This warning is enabled by -Wextra.

-Wrange-loop-construct (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

This warning warns when a C++ range-based for-loop is creating an unnecessary copy. This can happen when the range declaration is not a reference, but probably should be. For example:

 struct S { char arr[128]; };
 void fn () {
 S arr[5];
 for (const auto x : arr) { ... }
 }

It does not warn when the type being copied is a trivially-copyable type whose size is less than 64 bytes.

This warning also warns when a loop variable in a range-based for-loop is initialized with a value of a different type resulting in a copy. For example:

 void fn() {
 int arr[10];
 for (const double &x : arr) { ... }
 }

In the example above, in every iteration of the loop a temporary value of type "double" is created and destroyed, to which the reference "const double &" is bound.

This warning is enabled by -Wall.

-Wredundant-tags (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about redundant class-key and enum-key in references to class types and enumerated types in contexts where the key can be eliminated without causing an ambiguity. For example:

 struct foo;
 struct foo *p; // warn that keyword struct can be eliminated

On the other hand, in this example there is no warning:

 struct foo;
 void foo (); // "hides" struct foo
 void bar (struct foo&); // no warning, keyword struct is necessary

-Wno-subobject-linkage (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn if a class type has a base or a field whose type uses the anonymous namespace or depends on a type with no linkage. If a type A depends on a type B with no or internal linkage, defining it in multiple translation units would be an ODR violation because the meaning of B is different in each translation unit. If A only appears in a single translation unit, the best way to silence the warning is to give it internal linkage by putting it in an anonymous namespace as well. The compiler doesn’t give this warning for types defined in the main .C file, as those are unlikely to have multiple definitions. -Wsubobject-linkage is enabled by default.

-Weffc++ (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about violations of the following style guidelines from Scott Meyers’ Effective C++ series of books:

*

Define a copy constructor and an assignment operator for classes with dynamically-allocated memory.

*

Prefer initialization to assignment in constructors.

*

Have "operator=" return a reference to *this.

*

Don’t try to return a reference when you must return an object.

*

Distinguish between prefix and postfix forms of increment and decrement operators.

*

Never overload "&&", "||", 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.

-Wno-exceptions (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Disable the warning about the case when an exception handler is shadowed by another handler, which can point out a wrong ordering of exception handlers.

-Wstrict-null-sentinel (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about the use of an uncasted "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)

Disable warnings when non-template friend functions are declared within a template. In very old versions of GCC that predate implementation of the ISO standard, declarations such as friend int foo(int), where the name of the friend is an unqualified-id, could be interpreted as a particular specialization of a template function; the warning exists to diagnose compatibility problems, and is enabled by default.

-Wold-style-cast (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn if an old-style (C-style) cast to a non-void type is used within a C++ program. The new-style casts ("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)

Warn when a function declaration hides virtual functions from a base class. For example, in:

 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)

Disable the diagnostic for converting a bound pointer to member function to a plain pointer.

-Wsign-promo (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when overload resolution chooses a promotion from unsigned or enumerated type to a signed type, over a conversion to an unsigned type of the same size. Previous versions of G++ tried to preserve unsignedness, but the standard mandates the current behavior.

-Wtemplates (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a primary template declaration is encountered. Some coding rules disallow templates, and this may be used to enforce that rule. The warning is inactive inside a system header file, such as the STL, so one can still use the STL. One may also instantiate or specialize templates.

-Wno-mismatched-new-delete (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn for mismatches between calls to "operator new" or "operator delete" and the corresponding call to the allocation or deallocation function. This includes invocations of C++ "operator delete" with pointers returned from either mismatched forms of "operator new", or from other functions that allocate objects for which the "operator delete" isn’t a suitable deallocator, as well as calls to other deallocation functions with pointers returned from "operator new" for which the deallocation function isn’t suitable.

For example, the "delete" expression in the function below is diagnosed because it doesn’t match the array form of the "new" expression the pointer argument was returned from. Similarly, the call to "free" is also diagnosed.

 void f ()
 {
 int *a = new int[n];
 delete a; // warning: mismatch in array forms of expressions
 
 char *p = new char[n];
 free (p); // warning: mismatch between new and free
 }

The related option -Wmismatched-dealloc diagnoses mismatches involving allocation and deallocation functions other than "operator new" and "operator delete".

-Wmismatched-new-delete is enabled by default.

-Wmismatched-tags (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn for declarations of structs, classes, and class templates and their specializations with a class-key that does not match either the definition or the first declaration if no definition is provided.

For example, the declaration of "struct Object" in the argument list of "draw" triggers the warning. To avoid it, either remove the redundant class-key "struct" or replace it with "class" to match its definition.

 class Object {
 public:
 virtual ~Object () = 0;
 };
 void draw (struct Object*);

It is not wrong to declare a class with the class-key "struct" as the example above shows. The -Wmismatched-tags option is intended to help achieve a consistent style of class declarations. In code that is intended to be portable to Windows-based compilers the warning helps prevent unresolved references due to the difference in the mangling of symbols declared with different class-keys. The option can be used either on its own or in conjunction with -Wredundant-tags.

-Wmultiple-inheritance (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a class is defined with multiple direct base classes. Some coding rules disallow multiple inheritance, and this may be used to enforce that rule. The warning is inactive inside a system header file, such as the STL, so one can still use the STL. One may also define classes that indirectly use multiple inheritance.

-Wvirtual-inheritance

Warn when a class is defined with a virtual direct base class. Some coding rules disallow multiple inheritance, and this may be used to enforce that rule. The warning is inactive inside a system header file, such as the STL, so one can still use the STL. One may also define classes that indirectly use virtual inheritance.

-Wno-virtual-move-assign

Suppress warnings about inheriting from a virtual base with a non-trivial C++11 move assignment operator. This is dangerous because if the virtual base is reachable along more than one path, it is moved multiple times, which can mean both objects end up in the moved-from state. If the move assignment operator is written to avoid moving from a moved-from object, this warning can be disabled.

-Wnamespaces

Warn when a namespace definition is opened. Some coding rules disallow namespaces, and this may be used to enforce that rule. The warning is inactive inside a system header file, such as the STL, so one can still use the STL. One may also use using directives and qualified names.

-Wno-terminate (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Disable the warning about a throw-expression that will immediately result in a call to "terminate".

-Wno-vexing-parse (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about the most vexing parse syntactic ambiguity. This warns about the cases when a declaration looks like a variable definition, but the C++ language requires it to be interpreted as a function declaration. For instance:

 void f(double a) {
 int i(); // extern int i (void);
 int n(int(a)); // extern int n (int);
 }

Another example:

 struct S { S(int); };
 void f(double a) {
 S x(int(a)); // extern struct S x (int);
 S y(int()); // extern struct S y (int (*) (void));
 S z(); // extern struct S z (void);
 }

The warning will suggest options how to deal with such an ambiguity; e.g., it can suggest removing the parentheses or using braces instead.

This warning is enabled by default.

-Wno-class-conversion (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn when a conversion function converts an object to the same type, to a base class of that type, or to void; such a conversion function will never be called.

-Wvolatile (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about deprecated uses of the "volatile" qualifier. This includes postfix and prefix "++" and "--" expressions of "volatile"-qualified types, using simple assignments where the left operand is a "volatile"-qualified non-class type for their value, compound assignments where the left operand is a "volatile"-qualified non-class type, "volatile"-qualified function return type, "volatile"-qualified parameter type, and structured bindings of a "volatile"-qualified type. This usage was deprecated in C++20.

Enabled by default with -std=c++20.

-Wzero-as-null-pointer-constant (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when a literal 0 is used as null pointer constant. This can be useful to facilitate the conversion to "nullptr" in C++11.

-Waligned-new

Warn about a new-expression of a type that requires greater alignment than the "alignof(std::max_align_t)" but uses an allocation function without an explicit alignment parameter. This option is enabled by -Wall.

Normally this only warns about global allocation functions, but -Waligned-new=all also warns about class member allocation functions.

-Wno-placement-new

-Wplacement-new=n

Warn about placement new expressions with undefined behavior, such as constructing an object in a buffer that is smaller than the type of the object. For example, the placement new expression below is diagnosed because it attempts to construct an array of 64 integers in a buffer only 64 bytes large.

 char buf [64];
 new (buf) int[64];

This warning is enabled by default.

-Wplacement-new=1

This is the default warning level of -Wplacement-new. At this level the warning is not issued for some strictly undefined constructs that GCC allows as extensions for compatibility with legacy code. For example, the following "new" expression is not diagnosed at this level even though it has undefined behavior according to the C++ standard because it writes past the end of the one-element array.

 struct S { int n, a[1]; };
 S *s = (S *)malloc (sizeof *s + 31 * sizeof s->a[0]);
 new (s->a)int [32]();

-Wplacement-new=2

At this level, in addition to diagnosing all the same constructs as at level 1, a diagnostic is also issued for placement new expressions that construct an object in the last member of structure whose type is an array of a single element and whose size is less than the size of the object being constructed. While the previous example would be diagnosed, the following construct makes use of the flexible member array extension to avoid the warning at level 2.

 struct S { int n, a[]; };
 S *s = (S *)malloc (sizeof *s + 32 * sizeof s->a[0]);
 new (s->a)int [32]();

-Wcatch-value

-Wcatch-value=n(C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about catch handlers that do not catch via reference. With -Wcatch-value=1 (or -Wcatch-value for short) warn about polymorphic class types that are caught by value. With -Wcatch-value=2 warn about all class types that are caught by value. With -Wcatch-value=3 warn about all types that are not caught by reference. -Wcatch-value is enabled by -Wall.

-Wconditionally-supported (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn for conditionally-supported (C++11 [intro.defs]) constructs.

-Wno-delete-incomplete (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn when deleting a pointer to incomplete type, which may cause undefined behavior at runtime. This warning is enabled by default.

-Wextra-semi (C++, Objective-C++ only)

Warn about redundant semicolons after in-class function definitions.

-Wno-inaccessible-base (C++, Objective-C++ only)

This option controls warnings when a base class is inaccessible in a class derived from it due to ambiguity. The warning is enabled by default. Note that the warning for ambiguous virtual bases is enabled by the -Wextra option.

 struct A { int a; };
 
 struct B : A { };
 
 struct C : B, A { };

-Wno-inherited-variadic-ctor

Suppress warnings about use of C++11 inheriting constructors when the base class inherited from has a C variadic constructor; the warning is on by default because the ellipsis is not inherited.

-Wno-invalid-offsetof (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Suppress warnings from applying the "offsetof" macro to a non-POD type. According to the 2014 ISO C++ standard, applying "offsetof" to a non-standard-layout type is undefined. In existing C++ implementations, however, "offsetof" typically gives meaningful results. This flag is for users who are aware that they are writing nonportable code and who have deliberately chosen to ignore the warning about it.

The restrictions on "offsetof" may be relaxed in a future version of the C++ standard.

-Wsized-deallocation (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about a definition of an unsized deallocation function

 void operator delete (void *) noexcept;
 void operator delete[] (void *) noexcept;

without a definition of the corresponding sized deallocation function

 void operator delete (void *, std::size_t) noexcept;
 void operator delete[] (void *, std::size_t) noexcept;

or vice versa. Enabled by -Wextra along with -fsized-deallocation.

-Wsuggest-final-types

Warn about types with virtual methods where code quality would be improved if the type were declared with the C++11 "final" specifier, or, if possible, declared in an anonymous namespace. This allows GCC to more aggressively devirtualize the polymorphic calls. This warning is more effective with link-time optimization, where the information about the class hierarchy graph is more complete.

-Wsuggest-final-methods

Warn about virtual methods where code quality would be improved if the method were declared with the C++11 "final" specifier, or, if possible, its type were declared in an anonymous namespace or with the "final" specifier. This warning is more effective with link-time optimization, where the information about the class hierarchy graph is more complete. It is recommended to first consider suggestions of -Wsuggest-final-types and then rebuild with new annotations.

-Wsuggest-override

Warn about overriding virtual functions that are not marked with the "override" keyword.

-Wuseless-cast (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn when an expression is casted to its own type.

-Wno-conversion-null (C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn for conversions between "NULL" and non-pointer types. -Wconversion-null is enabled by default.

Options Controlling Objective-C and Objective-C++ Dialects

(NOTE: This manual does not describe the Objective-C and Objective-C++ languages themselves.

This section describes the command-line options that are only meaningful for Objective-C and Objective-C++ programs. You can also use most of the language-independent GNU compiler options. For example, you might compile a file some_class.m like this:

 gcc -g -fgnu-runtime -O -c some_class.m

In this example, -fgnu-runtime is an option meant only for Objective-C and Objective-C++ programs; you can use the other options with any language supported by GCC.

Note that since Objective-C is an extension of the C language, Objective-C compilations may also use options specific to the C front-end (e.g., -Wtraditional). Similarly, Objective-C++ compilations may use C++-specific options (e.g., -Wabi).

Here is a list of options that are only for compiling Objective-C and Objective-C++ programs:

-fconstant-string-class=class-name

Use class-name as the name of the class to instantiate for each literal string specified with the syntax "@"..."". The default class name is "NXConstantString" if the GNU runtime is being used, and "NSConstantString" if the NeXT runtime is being used (see below). The -fconstant-cfstrings option, if also present, overrides the -fconstant-string-class setting and cause "@"..."" literals to be laid out as constant CoreFoundation strings.

-fgnu-runtime

Generate object code compatible with the standard GNU Objective-C runtime. This is the default for most types of systems.

-fnext-runtime

Generate output compatible with the NeXT runtime. This is the default for NeXT-based systems, including Darwin and Mac OS X. The macro "__NEXT_RUNTIME__" is predefined if (and only if) this option is used.

-fno-nil-receivers

Assume that all Objective-C message dispatches ("[receiver message:arg]") in this translation unit ensure that the receiver is not "nil". This allows for more efficient entry points in the runtime to be used. This option is only available in conjunction with the NeXT runtime and ABI version 0 or 1.

-fobjc-abi-version=n

Use version n of the Objective-C ABI for the selected runtime. This option is currently supported only for the NeXT runtime. In that case, Version 0 is the traditional (32-bit) ABI without support for properties and other Objective-C 2.0 additions. Version 1 is the traditional (32-bit) ABI with support for properties and other Objective-C 2.0 additions. Version 2 is the modern (64-bit) ABI. If nothing is specified, the default is Version 0 on 32-bit target machines, and Version 2 on 64-bit target machines.

-fobjc-call-cxx-cdtors

For each Objective-C class, check if any of its instance variables is a C++ object with a non-trivial default constructor. If so, synthesize a special "- (id) .cxx_construct" instance method which runs non-trivial default constructors on any such instance variables, in order, and then return "self". Similarly, check if any instance variable is a C++ object with a non-trivial destructor, and if so, synthesize a special "- (void) .cxx_destruct" method which runs all such default destructors, in reverse order.

The "- (id) .cxx_construct" and "- (void) .cxx_destruct" methods thusly generated only operate on instance variables declared in the current Objective-C class, and not those inherited from superclasses. It is the responsibility of the Objective-C runtime to invoke all such methods in an object’s inheritance hierarchy. The "- (id) .cxx_construct" methods are invoked by the runtime immediately after a new object instance is allocated; the "- (void) .cxx_destruct" methods are invoked immediately before the runtime deallocates an object instance.

As of this writing, only the NeXT runtime on Mac OS X 10.4 and later has support for invoking the "- (id) .cxx_construct" and "- (void) .cxx_destruct" methods.

-fobjc-direct-dispatch

Allow fast jumps to the message dispatcher. On Darwin this is accomplished via the comm page.

-fobjc-exceptions

Enable syntactic support for structured exception handling in Objective-C, similar to what is offered by C++. This option is required to use the Objective-C keywords @try, @throw, @catch, @finally and @synchronized. This option is available with both the GNU runtime and the NeXT runtime (but not available in conjunction with the NeXT runtime on Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier).

-fobjc-gc

Enable garbage collection (GC) in Objective-C and Objective-C++ programs. This option is only available with the NeXT runtime; the GNU runtime has a different garbage collection implementation that does not require special compiler flags.

-fobjc-nilcheck

For the NeXT runtime with version 2 of the ABI, check for a nil receiver in method invocations before doing the actual method call. This is the default and can be disabled using -fno-objc-nilcheck. Class methods and super calls are never checked for nil in this way no matter what this flag is set to. Currently this flag does nothing when the GNU runtime, or an older version of the NeXT runtime ABI, is used.

-fobjc-std=objc1

Conform to the language syntax of Objective-C 1.0, the language recognized by GCC 4.0. This only affects the Objective-C additions to the C/C++ language; it does not affect conformance to C/C++ standards, which is controlled by the separate C/C++ dialect option flags. When this option is used with the Objective-C or Objective-C++ compiler, any Objective-C syntax that is not recognized by GCC 4.0 is rejected. This is useful if you need to make sure that your Objective-C code can be compiled with older versions of GCC.

-freplace-objc-classes

Emit a special marker instructing ld(1) not to statically link in the resulting object file, and allow dyld(1) to load it in at run time instead. This is used in conjunction with the Fix-and-Continue debugging mode, where the object file in question may be recompiled and dynamically reloaded in the course of program execution, without the need to restart the program itself. Currently, Fix-and-Continue functionality is only available in conjunction with the NeXT runtime on Mac OS X 10.3 and later.

-fzero-link

When compiling for the NeXT runtime, the compiler ordinarily replaces calls to "objc_getClass("...")" (when the name of the class is known at compile time) with static class references that get initialized at load time, which improves run-time performance. Specifying the -fzero-link flag suppresses this behavior and causes calls to "objc_getClass("...")" to be retained. This is useful in Zero-Link debugging mode, since it allows for individual class implementations to be modified during program execution. The GNU runtime currently always retains calls to "objc_get_class("...")" regardless of command-line options.

-fno-local-ivars

By default instance variables in Objective-C can be accessed as if they were local variables from within the methods of the class they’re declared in. This can lead to shadowing between instance variables and other variables declared either locally inside a class method or globally with the same name. Specifying the -fno-local-ivars flag disables this behavior thus avoiding variable shadowing issues.

-fivar-visibility=[public|protected|private|package]

Set the default instance variable visibility to the specified option so that instance variables declared outside the scope of any access modifier directives default to the specified visibility.

-gen-decls

Dump interface declarations for all classes seen in the source file to a file named sourcename.decl.

-Wassign-intercept (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Warn whenever an Objective-C assignment is being intercepted by the garbage collector.

-Wno-property-assign-default (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Do not warn if a property for an Objective-C object has no assign semantics specified.

-Wno-protocol (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

If a class is declared to implement a protocol, a warning is issued for every method in the protocol that is not implemented by the class. The default behavior is to issue a warning for every method not explicitly implemented in the class, even if a method implementation is inherited from the superclass. If you use the -Wno-protocol option, then methods inherited from the superclass are considered to be implemented, and no warning is issued for them.

-Wobjc-root-class (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Warn if a class interface lacks a superclass. Most classes will inherit from "NSObject" (or "Object") for example. When declaring classes intended to be root classes, the warning can be suppressed by marking their interfaces with "__attribute__((objc_root_class))".

-Wselector (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Warn if multiple methods of different types for the same selector are found during compilation. The check is performed on the list of methods in the final stage of compilation. Additionally, a check is performed for each selector appearing in a "@selector(...)" expression, and a corresponding method for that selector has been found during compilation. Because these checks scan the method table only at the end of compilation, these warnings are not produced if the final stage of compilation is not reached, for example because an error is found during compilation, or because the -fsyntax-only option is being used.

-Wstrict-selector-match (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Warn if multiple methods with differing argument and/or return types are found for a given selector when attempting to send a message using this selector to a receiver of type "id" or "Class". When this flag is off (which is the default behavior), the compiler omits such warnings if any differences found are confined to types that share the same size and alignment.

-Wundeclared-selector (Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Warn if a "@selector(...)" expression referring to an undeclared selector is found. A selector is considered undeclared if no method with that name has been declared before the "@selector(...)" expression, either explicitly in an @interface or @protocol declaration, or implicitly in an @implementation section. This option always performs its checks as soon as a "@selector(...)" expression is found, while -Wselector only performs its checks in the final stage of compilation. This also enforces the coding style convention that methods and selectors must be declared before being used.

-print-objc-runtime-info

Generate C header describing the largest structure that is passed by value, if any.

Options to Control Diagnostic Messages Formatting

Traditionally, diagnostic messages have been formatted irrespective of the output device’s aspect (e.g. its width, …). You can use the options described below to control the formatting algorithm for diagnostic messages, e.g. how many characters per line, how often source location information should be reported. Note that some language front ends may not honor these options.

-fmessage-length=n

Try to format error messages so that they fit on lines of about n characters. If n is zero, then no line-wrapping is done; each error message appears on a single line. This is the default for all front ends.

Note – this option also affects the display of the #error and #warning pre-processor directives, and the deprecated function/type/variable attribute. It does not however affect the pragma GCC warning and pragma GCC error pragmas.

-fdiagnostics-plain-output

This option requests that diagnostic output look as plain as possible, which may be useful when running dejagnu or other utilities that need to parse diagnostics output and prefer that it remain more stable over time. -fdiagnostics-plain-output is currently equivalent to the following options: -fno-diagnostics-show-caret -fno-diagnostics-show-line-numbers -fdiagnostics-color=never -fdiagnostics-urls=never -fdiagnostics-path-format=separate-events In the future, if GCC changes the default appearance of its diagnostics, the corresponding option to disable the new behavior will be added to this list.

-fdiagnostics-show-location=once

Only meaningful in line-wrapping mode. Instructs the diagnostic messages reporter to emit source location information once; that is, in case the message is too long to fit on a single physical line and has to be wrapped, the source location won’t be emitted (as prefix) again, over and over, in subsequent continuation lines. This is the default behavior.

-fdiagnostics-show-location=every-line

Only meaningful in line-wrapping mode. Instructs the diagnostic messages reporter to emit the same source location information (as prefix) for physical lines that result from the process of breaking a message which is too long to fit on a single line.

-fdiagnostics-color[=WHEN]

-fno-diagnostics-color

Use color in diagnostics. WHEN is never, always, or auto. The default depends on how the compiler has been configured, it can be any of the above WHEN options or also never if GCC_COLORS environment variable isn’t present in the environment, and auto otherwise. auto makes GCC use color only when the standard error is a terminal, and when not executing in an emacs shell. The forms -fdiagnostics-color and -fno-diagnostics-color are aliases for -fdiagnostics-color=always and -fdiagnostics-color=never, respectively.

The colors are defined by the environment variable GCC_COLORS. Its value is a colon-separated list of capabilities and Select Graphic Rendition (SGR) substrings. SGR commands are interpreted by the terminal or terminal emulator. (See the section in the documentation of your text terminal for permitted values and their meanings as character attributes.) These substring values are integers in decimal representation and can be concatenated with semicolons. Common values to concatenate include 1 for bold, 4 for underline, 5 for blink, 7 for inverse, 39 for default foreground color, 30 to 37 for foreground colors, 90 to 97 for 16-color mode foreground colors, 38;5;0 to 38;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color modes foreground colors, 49 for default background color, 40 to 47 for background colors, 100 to 107 for 16-color mode background colors, and 48;5;0 to 48;5;255 for 88-color and 256-color modes background colors.

The default GCC_COLORS is

 error=01;31:warning=01;35:note=01;36:range1=32:range2=34:locus=01:\
 quote=01:path=01;36:fixit-insert=32:fixit-delete=31:\
 diff-filename=01:diff-hunk=32:diff-delete=31:diff-insert=32:\
 type-diff=01;32

where 01;31 is bold red, 01;35 is bold magenta, 01;36 is bold cyan, 32 is green, 34 is blue, 01 is bold, and 31 is red. Setting GCC_COLORS to the empty string disables colors. Supported capabilities are as follows.

"error="

SGR substring for error: markers.

"warning="

SGR substring for warning: markers.

"note="

SGR substring for note: markers.

"path="

SGR substring for colorizing paths of control-flow events as printed via -fdiagnostics-path-format=, such as the identifiers of individual events and lines indicating interprocedural calls and returns.

"range1="

SGR substring for first additional range.

"range2="

SGR substring for second additional range.

"locus="

SGR substring for location information, file:line or file:line:column etc.

"quote="

SGR substring for information printed within quotes.

"fixit-insert="

SGR substring for fix-it hints suggesting text to be inserted or replaced.

"fixit-delete="

SGR substring for fix-it hints suggesting text to be deleted.

"diff-filename="

SGR substring for filename headers within generated patches.

"diff-hunk="

SGR substring for the starts of hunks within generated patches.

"diff-delete="

SGR substring for deleted lines within generated patches.

"diff-insert="

SGR substring for inserted lines within generated patches.

"type-diff="

SGR substring for highlighting mismatching types within template arguments in the C++ frontend.

-fdiagnostics-urls[=WHEN]

Use escape sequences to embed URLs in diagnostics. For example, when -fdiagnostics-show-option emits text showing the command-line option controlling a diagnostic, embed a URL for documentation of that option.

WHEN is never, always, or auto. auto makes GCC use URL escape sequences only when the standard error is a terminal, and when not executing in an emacs shell or any graphical terminal which is known to be incompatible with this feature, see below.

The default depends on how the compiler has been configured. It can be any of the above WHEN options.

GCC can also be configured (via the –with-diagnostics-urls=auto-if-env configure-time option) so that the default is affected by environment variables. Under such a configuration, GCC defaults to using auto if either GCC_URLS or TERM_URLS environment variables are present and non-empty in the environment of the compiler, or never if neither are.

However, even with -fdiagnostics-urls=always the behavior is dependent on those environment variables: If GCC_URLS is set to empty or no, do not embed URLs in diagnostics. If set to st, URLs use ST escape sequences. If set to bel, the default, URLs use BEL escape sequences. Any other non-empty value enables the feature. If GCC_URLS is not set, use TERM_URLS as a fallback. Note: ST is an ANSI escape sequence, string terminator ESC \, BEL is an ASCII character, CTRL-G that usually sounds like a beep.

At this time GCC tries to detect also a few terminals that are known to not implement the URL feature, and have bugs or at least had bugs in some versions that are still in use, where the URL escapes are likely to misbehave, i.e. print garbage on the screen. That list is currently xfce4-terminal, certain known to be buggy gnome-terminal versions, the linux console, and mingw. This check can be skipped with the -fdiagnostics-urls=always.

-fno-diagnostics-show-option

By default, each diagnostic emitted includes text indicating the command-line option that directly controls the diagnostic (if such an option is known to the diagnostic machinery). Specifying the -fno-diagnostics-show-option flag suppresses that behavior.

-fno-diagnostics-show-caret

By default, each diagnostic emitted includes the original source line and a caret ^ indicating the column. This option suppresses this information. The source line is truncated to n characters, if the -fmessage-length=n option is given. When the output is done to the terminal, the width is limited to the width given by the COLUMNS environment variable or, if not set, to the terminal width.

-fno-diagnostics-show-labels

By default, when printing source code (via -fdiagnostics-show-caret), diagnostics can label ranges of source code with pertinent information, such as the types of expressions:

 printf ("foo %s bar", long_i + long_j);
 ~^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | |
 char * long int

This option suppresses the printing of these labels (in the example above, the vertical bars and the “char *” and “long int” text).

-fno-diagnostics-show-cwe

Diagnostic messages can optionally have an associated @url{https://cwe.mitre.org/index.html, CWE} identifier. GCC itself only provides such metadata for some of the -fanalyzer diagnostics. GCC plugins may also provide diagnostics with such metadata. By default, if this information is present, it will be printed with the diagnostic. This option suppresses the printing of this metadata.

-fno-diagnostics-show-line-numbers

By default, when printing source code (via -fdiagnostics-show-caret), a left margin is printed, showing line numbers. This option suppresses this left margin.

-fdiagnostics-minimum-margin-width=width

This option controls the minimum width of the left margin printed by -fdiagnostics-show-line-numbers. It defaults to 6.

-fdiagnostics-parseable-fixits

Emit fix-it hints in a machine-parseable format, suitable for consumption by IDEs. For each fix-it, a line will be printed after the relevant diagnostic, starting with the string “fix-it:”. For example:

 fix-it:"test.c":{45:3-45:21}:"gtk_widget_show_all"

The location is expressed as a half-open range, expressed as a count of bytes, starting at byte 1 for the initial column. In the above example, bytes 3 through 20 of line 45 of “test.c” are to be replaced with the given string:

 00000000011111111112222222222
 12345678901234567890123456789
 gtk_widget_showall (dlg);
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 gtk_widget_show_all

The filename and replacement string escape backslash as “\”, tab as “ ”, newline as “
”, double quotes as “\”“, non-printable characters as octal (e.g. vertical tab as ”").

An empty replacement string indicates that the given range is to be removed. An empty range (e.g. “45:3-45:3”) indicates that the string is to be inserted at the given position.

-fdiagnostics-generate-patch

Print fix-it hints to stderr in unified diff format, after any diagnostics are printed. For example:

 --- test.c
 +++ test.c
 @ -42,5 +42,5 @
 
 void show_cb(GtkDialog *dlg)
 {
 - gtk_widget_showall(dlg);
 + gtk_widget_show_all(dlg);
 }

The diff may or may not be colorized, following the same rules as for diagnostics (see -fdiagnostics-color).

-fdiagnostics-show-template-tree

In the C++ frontend, when printing diagnostics showing mismatching template types, such as:

 could not convert 'std::map<int, std::vector<double> >()'
 from 'map<[...],vector<double>>' to 'map<[...],vector<float>>

the -fdiagnostics-show-template-tree flag enables printing a tree-like structure showing the common and differing parts of the types, such as:

 map<
 [...],
 vector<
 [double != float]>>

The parts that differ are highlighted with color (“double” and “float” in this case).

-fno-elide-type

By default when the C++ frontend prints diagnostics showing mismatching template types, common parts of the types are printed as “[…]” to simplify the error message. For example:

 could not convert 'std::map<int, std::vector<double> >()'
 from 'map<[...],vector<double>>' to 'map<[...],vector<float>>

Specifying the -fno-elide-type flag suppresses that behavior. This flag also affects the output of the -fdiagnostics-show-template-tree flag.

-fdiagnostics-path-format=KIND

Specify how to print paths of control-flow events for diagnostics that have such a path associated with them.

KIND is none, separate-events, or inline-events, the default.

none means to not print diagnostic paths.

separate-events means to print a separate “note” diagnostic for each event within the diagnostic. For example:

 test.c:29:5: error: passing NULL as argument 1 to 'PyList_Append' which requires a non-NULL parameter
 test.c:25:10: note: (1) when 'PyList_New' fails, returning NULL
 test.c:27:3: note: (2) when 'i < count'
 test.c:29:5: note: (3) when calling 'PyList_Append', passing NULL from (1) as argument 1

inline-events means to print the events “inline” within the source code. This view attempts to consolidate the events into runs of sufficiently-close events, printing them as labelled ranges within the source.

For example, the same events as above might be printed as:

 'test': events 1-3
 |
 | 25 | list = PyList_New(0);
 | | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | (1) when 'PyList_New' fails, returning NULL
 | 26 |
 | 27 | for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
 | | ~~~
 | | |
 | | (2) when 'i < count'
 | 28 | item = PyLong_FromLong(random());
 | 29 | PyList_Append(list, item);
 | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | (3) when calling 'PyList_Append', passing NULL from (1) as argument 1
 |

Interprocedural control flow is shown by grouping the events by stack frame, and using indentation to show how stack frames are nested, pushed, and popped.

For example:

 'test': events 1-2
 |
 | 133 | {
 | | ^
 | | |
 | | (1) entering 'test'
 | 134 | boxed_int *obj = make_boxed_int (i);
 | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | (2) calling 'make_boxed_int'
 |
 +--> 'make_boxed_int': events 3-4
 |
 | 120 | {
 | | ^
 | | |
 | | (3) entering 'make_boxed_int'
 | 121 | boxed_int *result = (boxed_int *)wrapped_malloc (sizeof (boxed_int));
 | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | (4) calling 'wrapped_malloc'
 |
 +--> 'wrapped_malloc': events 5-6
 |
 | 7 | {
 | | ^
 | | |
 | | (5) entering 'wrapped_malloc'
 | 8 | return malloc (size);
 | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | (6) calling 'malloc'
 |
 <-------------+
 |
 'test': event 7
 |
 | 138 | free_boxed_int (obj);
 | | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | (7) calling 'free_boxed_int'
 |
 (etc)

-fdiagnostics-show-path-depths

This option provides additional information when printing control-flow paths associated with a diagnostic.

If this is option is provided then the stack depth will be printed for each run of events within -fdiagnostics-path-format=separate-events.

This is intended for use by GCC developers and plugin developers when debugging diagnostics that report interprocedural control flow.

-fno-show-column

Do not print column numbers in diagnostics. This may be necessary if diagnostics are being scanned by a program that does not understand the column numbers, such as dejagnu.

-fdiagnostics-column-unit=UNIT

Select the units for the column number. This affects traditional diagnostics (in the absence of -fno-show-column), as well as JSON format diagnostics if requested.

The default UNIT, display, considers the number of display columns occupied by each character. This may be larger than the number of bytes required to encode the character, in the case of tab characters, or it may be smaller, in the case of multibyte characters. For example, the character “GREEK SMALL LETTER PI (U+03C0)” occupies one display column, and its UTF-8 encoding requires two bytes; the character “SLIGHTLY SMILING FACE (U+1F642)” occupies two display columns, and its UTF-8 encoding requires four bytes.

Setting UNIT to byte changes the column number to the raw byte count in all cases, as was traditionally output by GCC prior to version 11.1.0.

-fdiagnostics-column-origin=ORIGIN

Select the origin for column numbers, i.e. the column number assigned to the first column. The default value of 1 corresponds to traditional GCC behavior and to the GNU style guide. Some utilities may perform better with an origin of 0; any non-negative value may be specified.

-fdiagnostics-format=FORMAT

Select a different format for printing diagnostics. FORMAT is text or json. The default is text.

The json format consists of a top-level JSON array containing JSON objects representing the diagnostics.

The JSON is emitted as one line, without formatting; the examples below have been formatted for clarity.

Diagnostics can have child diagnostics. For example, this error and note:

 misleading-indentation.c:15:3: warning: this 'if' clause does not
 guard... [-Wmisleading-indentation]
 15 | if (flag)
 | ^~
 misleading-indentation.c:17:5: note: ...this statement, but the latter
 is misleadingly indented as if it were guarded by the 'if'
 17 | y = 2;
 | ^

might be printed in JSON form (after formatting) like this:

 [
 {
 "kind": "warning",
 "locations": [
 {
 "caret": {
 "display-column": 3,
 "byte-column": 3,
 "column": 3,
 "file": "misleading-indentation.c",
 "line": 15
 },
 "finish": {
 "display-column": 4,
 "byte-column": 4,
 "column": 4,
 "file": "misleading-indentation.c",
 "line": 15
 }
 }
 ],
 "message": "this ‘if’ clause does not guard...",
 "option": "-Wmisleading-indentation",
 "option_url": "https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Warning-Options.html#index-Wmisleading-indentation",
 "children": [
 {
 "kind": "note",
 "locations": [
 {
 "caret": {
 "display-column": 5,
 "byte-column": 5,
 "column": 5,
 "file": "misleading-indentation.c",
 "line": 17
 }
 }
 ],
 "message": "...this statement, but the latter is ..."
 }
 ]
 "column-origin": 1,
 },
 ...
 ]

where the "note" is a child of the "warning".

A diagnostic has a "kind". If this is "warning", then there is an "option" key describing the command-line option controlling the warning.

A diagnostic can contain zero or more locations. Each location has an optional "label" string and up to three positions within it: a "caret" position and optional "start" and "finish" positions. A position is described by a "file" name, a "line" number, and three numbers indicating a column position:

*

"display-column" counts display columns, accounting for tabs and multibyte characters.

*

"byte-column" counts raw bytes.

*

"column" is equal to one of the previous two, as dictated by the -fdiagnostics-column-unit option.

All three columns are relative to the origin specified by -fdiagnostics-column-origin, which is typically equal to 1 but may be set, for instance, to 0 for compatibility with other utilities that number columns from 0. The column origin is recorded in the JSON output in the "column-origin" tag. In the remaining examples below, the extra column number outputs have been omitted for brevity.

For example, this error:

 bad-binary-ops.c:64:23: error: invalid operands to binary + (have 'S' {aka
 'struct s'} and 'T' {aka 'struct t'})
 64 | return callee_4a () + callee_4b ();
 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 | | |
 | | T {aka struct t}
 | S {aka struct s}

has three locations. Its primary location is at the “+” token at column 23. It has two secondary locations, describing the left and right-hand sides of the expression, which have labels. It might be printed in JSON form as:

 {
 "children": [],
 "kind": "error",
 "locations": [
 {
 "caret": {
 "column": 23, "file": "bad-binary-ops.c", "line": 64
 }
 },
 {
 "caret": {
 "column": 10, "file": "bad-binary-ops.c", "line": 64
 },
 "finish": {
 "column": 21, "file": "bad-binary-ops.c", "line": 64
 },
 "label": "S {aka struct s}"
 },
 {
 "caret": {
 "column": 25, "file": "bad-binary-ops.c", "line": 64
 },
 "finish": {
 "column": 36, "file": "bad-binary-ops.c", "line": 64
 },
 "label": "T {aka struct t}"
 }
 ],
 "message": "invalid operands to binary + ..."
 }

If a diagnostic contains fix-it hints, it has a "fixits" array, consisting of half-open intervals, similar to the output of -fdiagnostics-parseable-fixits. For example, this diagnostic with a replacement fix-it hint:

 demo.c:8:15: error: 'struct s' has no member named 'colour'; did you
 mean 'color'?
 8 | return ptr->colour;
 | ^~~~~~
 | color

might be printed in JSON form as:

 {
 "children": [],
 "fixits": [
 {
 "next": {
 "column": 21,
 "file": "demo.c",
 "line": 8
 },
 "start": {
 "column": 15,
 "file": "demo.c",
 "line": 8
 },
 "string": "color"
 }
 ],
 "kind": "error",
 "locations": [
 {
 "caret": {
 "column": 15,
 "file": "demo.c",
 "line": 8
 },
 "finish": {
 "column": 20,
 "file": "demo.c",
 "line": 8
 }
 }
 ],
 "message": "‘struct s’ has no member named ..."
 }

where the fix-it hint suggests replacing the text from "start" up to but not including "next" with "string"‘s value. Deletions are expressed via an empty value for "string", insertions by having "start" equal "next".

If the diagnostic has a path of control-flow events associated with it, it has a "path" array of objects representing the events. Each event object has a "description" string, a "location" object, along with a "function" string and a "depth" number for representing interprocedural paths. The "function" represents the current function at that event, and the "depth" represents the stack depth relative to some baseline: the higher, the more frames are within the stack.

For example, the intraprocedural example shown for -fdiagnostics-path-format= might have this JSON for its path:

 "path": [
 {
 "depth": 0,
 "description": "when 'PyList_New' fails, returning NULL",
 "function": "test",
 "location": {
 "column": 10,
 "file": "test.c",
 "line": 25
 }
 },
 {
 "depth": 0,
 "description": "when 'i < count'",
 "function": "test",
 "location": {
 "column": 3,
 "file": "test.c",
 "line": 27
 }
 },
 {
 "depth": 0,
 "description": "when calling 'PyList_Append', passing NULL from (1) as argument 1",
 "function": "test",
 "location": {
 "column": 5,
 "file": "test.c",
 "line": 29
 }
 }
 ]

Options to Request or Suppress Warnings

Warnings are diagnostic messages that report constructions that are not inherently erroneous but that are risky or suggest there may have been an error.

The following language-independent options do not enable specific warnings but control the kinds of diagnostics produced by GCC.

-fsyntax-only

Check the code for syntax errors, but don’t do anything beyond that.

-fmax-errors=n

Limits the maximum number of error messages to n, at which point GCC bails out rather than attempting to continue processing the source code. If n is 0 (the default), there is no limit on the number of error messages produced. If -Wfatal-errors is also specified, then -Wfatal-errors takes precedence over this option.

-w

Inhibit all warning messages.

-Werror

Make all warnings into errors.

-Werror=

Make the specified warning into an error. The specifier for a warning is appended; for example -Werror=switch turns the warnings controlled by -Wswitch into errors. This switch takes a negative form, to be used to negate -Werror for specific warnings; for example -Wno-error=switch makes -Wswitch warnings not be errors, even when -Werror is in effect.

The warning message for each controllable warning includes the option that controls the warning. That option can then be used with -Werror= and -Wno-error= as described above. (Printing of the option in the warning message can be disabled using the -fno-diagnostics-show-option flag.)

Note that specifying -Werror=foo automatically implies -Wfoo. However, -Wno-error=foo does not imply anything.

-Wfatal-errors

This option causes the compiler to abort compilation on the first error occurred rather than trying to keep going and printing further error messages.

You can request many specific warnings with options beginning with -W, for example -Wimplicit to request warnings on implicit declarations. Each of these specific warning options also has a negative form beginning -Wno- to turn off warnings; for example, -Wno-implicit. This manual lists only one of the two forms, whichever is not the default. For further language-specific options also refer to C++ Dialect Options and Objective-C and Objective-C++ Dialect Options. Additional warnings can be produced by enabling the static analyzer;

Some options, such as -Wall and -Wextra, turn on other options, such as -Wunused, which may turn on further options, such as -Wunused-value. The combined effect of positive and negative forms is that more specific options have priority over less specific ones, independently of their position in the command-line. For options of the same specificity, the last one takes effect. Options enabled or disabled via pragmas take effect as if they appeared at the end of the command-line.

When an unrecognized warning option is requested (e.g., -Wunknown-warning), GCC emits a diagnostic stating that the option is not recognized. However, if the -Wno- form is used, the behavior is slightly different: no diagnostic is produced for -Wno-unknown-warning unless other diagnostics are being produced. This allows the use of new -Wno- options with old compilers, but if something goes wrong, the compiler warns that an unrecognized option is present.

The effectiveness of some warnings depends on optimizations also being enabled. For example -Wsuggest-final-types is more effective with link-time optimization and -Wmaybe-uninitialized does not warn at all unless optimization is enabled.

-Wpedantic

-pedantic

Issue all the warnings demanded by strict ISO C and ISO C++; reject all programs that use forbidden extensions, and some other programs that do not follow ISO C and ISO C++. For ISO C, follows the version of the ISO C standard specified by any -std option used.

Valid ISO C and ISO C++ programs should compile properly with or without this option (though a rare few require -ansi or a -std option specifying the required version of ISO C). However, without this option, certain GNU extensions and traditional C and C++ features are supported as well. With this option, they are rejected.

-Wpedantic does not cause warning messages for use of the alternate keywords whose names begin and end with __. This alternate format can also be used to disable warnings for non-ISO __intN types, i.e. __intN__. Pedantic warnings are also disabled in the expression that follows "__extension__". However, only system header files should use these escape routes; application programs should avoid them.

Some users try to use -Wpedantic to check programs for strict ISO C conformance. They soon find that it does not do quite what they want: it finds some non-ISO practices, but not all—only those for which ISO C requires a diagnostic, and some others for which diagnostics have been added.

A feature to report any failure to conform to ISO C might be useful in some instances, but would require considerable additional work and would be quite different from -Wpedantic. We don’t have plans to support such a feature in the near future.

Where the standard specified with -std represents a GNU extended dialect of C, such as gnu90 or gnu99, there is a corresponding base standard, the version of ISO C on which the GNU extended dialect is based. Warnings from -Wpedantic are given where they are required by the base standard. (It does not make sense for such warnings to be given only for features not in the specified GNU C dialect, since by definition the GNU dialects of C include all features the compiler supports with the given option, and there would be nothing to warn about.)

-pedantic-errors

Give an error whenever the base standard (see -Wpedantic) requires a diagnostic, in some cases where there is undefined behavior at compile-time and in some other cases that do not prevent compilation of programs that are valid according to the standard. This is not equivalent to -Werror=pedantic, since there are errors enabled by this option and not enabled by the latter and vice versa.

-Wall

This enables all the warnings about constructions that some users consider questionable, and that are easy to avoid (or modify to prevent the warning), even in conjunction with macros. This also enables some language-specific warnings described in C++ Dialect Options and Objective-C and Objective-C++ Dialect Options.

-Wall turns on the following warning flags:

-Waddress -Warray-bounds=1 (only with-O2) -Warray-parameter=2 (C and Objective-C only) -Wbool-compare -Wbool-operation -Wc++11-compat -Wc++14-compat -Wcatch-value (C++ and Objective-C++ only) -Wchar-subscripts -Wcomment -Wduplicate-decl-specifier (C and Objective-C only) -Wenum-compare (in C/ObjC; this is on by default in C++) -Wformat -Wformat-overflow -Wformat-truncation -Wint-in-bool-context -Wimplicit (C and Objective-C only) -Wimplicit-int (C and Objective-C only) -Wimplicit-function-declaration (C and Objective-C only) -Winit-self (only for C++) -Wlogical-not-parentheses -Wmain (only for C/ObjC and unless-ffreestanding) -Wmaybe-uninitialized -Wmemset-elt-size -Wmemset-transposed-args -Wmisleading-indentation (only for C/C++) -Wmissing-attributes -Wmissing-braces (only for C/ObjC) -Wmultistatement-macros -Wnarrowing (only for C++) -Wnonnull -Wnonnull-compare -Wopenmp-simd -Wparentheses -Wpessimizing-move (only for C++) -Wpointer-sign -Wrange-loop-construct (only for C++) -Wreorder -Wrestrict -Wreturn-type -Wsequence-point -Wsign-compare (only in C++) -Wsizeof-array-div -Wsizeof-pointer-div -Wsizeof-pointer-memaccess -Wstrict-aliasing -Wstrict-overflow=1 -Wswitch -Wtautological-compare -Wtrigraphs -Wuninitialized -Wunknown-pragmas -Wunused-function -Wunused-label -Wunused-value -Wunused-variable -Wvla-parameter (C and Objective-C only) -Wvolatile-register-var -Wzero-length-bounds

Note that some warning flags are not implied by -Wall. Some of them warn about constructions that users generally do not consider questionable, but which occasionally you might wish to check for; others warn about constructions that are necessary or hard to avoid in some cases, and there is no simple way to modify the code to suppress the warning. Some of them are enabled by -Wextra but many of them must be enabled individually.

-Wextra

This enables some extra warning flags that are not enabled by -Wall. (This option used to be called -W. The older name is still supported, but the newer name is more descriptive.)

-Wclobbered -Wcast-function-type -Wdeprecated-copy (C++ only) -Wempty-body -Wenum-conversion (C only) -Wignored-qualifiers -Wimplicit-fallthrough=3 -Wmissing-field-initializers -Wmissing-parameter-type (C only) -Wold-style-declaration (C only) -Woverride-init -Wsign-compare (C only) -Wstring-compare -Wredundant-move (only for C++) -Wtype-limits -Wuninitialized -Wshift-negative-value (in C++11 to C++17 and in C99 and newer) -Wunused-parameter (only with-Wunusedor-Wall) -Wunused-but-set-parameter (only with-Wunusedor-Wall)

The option -Wextra also prints warning messages for the following cases:

*

A pointer is compared against integer zero with "<", "<=", ">", or ">=".

*

(C++ only) An enumerator and a non-enumerator both appear in a conditional expression.

*

(C++ only) Ambiguous virtual bases.

*

(C++ only) Subscripting an array that has been declared "register".

*

(C++ only) Taking the address of a variable that has been declared "register".

*

(C++ only) A base class is not initialized in the copy constructor of a derived class.

-Wabi (C, Objective-C, C++ and Objective-C++ only)

Warn about code affected by ABI changes. This includes code that may not be compatible with the vendor-neutral C++ ABI as well as the psABI for the particular target.

Since G++ now defaults to updating the ABI with each major release, normally -Wabi warns only about C++ ABI compatibility problems if there is a check added later in a release series for an ABI issue discovered since the initial release. -Wabi warns about more things if an older ABI version is selected (with -fabi-version=n).

-Wabi can also be used with an explicit version number to warn about C++ ABI compatibility with a particular -fabi-version level, e.g. -Wabi=2 to warn about changes relative to -fabi-version=2.

If an explicit version number is provided and -fabi-compat-version is not specified, the version number from this option is used for compatibility aliases. If no explicit version number is provided with this option, but -fabi-compat-version is specified, that version number is used for C++ ABI warnings.

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.

Known incompatibilities in -fabi-version=2 (which was the default from GCC 3.4 to 4.9) include:

*

A template with a non-type template parameter of reference type was mangled incorrectly:

 extern int N;
 template <int &> struct S {};
 void n (S<N>) {2}

This was fixed in -fabi-version=3.

*

SIMD vector types declared using "__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.

*

Scoped enumerators passed as arguments to a variadic function are promoted like unscoped enumerators, causing "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.

*

Lambdas in default argument scope were mangled incorrectly, and the ABI changed the mangling of "nullptr_t".

These issues were corrected in -fabi-version=7.

*

When mangling a function type with function-cv-qualifiers, the un-qualified function type was incorrectly treated as a substitution candidate.

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.

*

Target-specific attributes that affect the identity of a type, such as ia32 calling conventions on a function type (stdcall, regparm, etc.), did not affect the mangled name, leading to name collisions when function pointers were used as template arguments.

This was fixed in -fabi-version=10, the default for GCC 6.1.

This option also enables warnings about psABI-related changes. The known psABI changes at this point include:

*

For SysV/x86-64, unions with "long double" members are passed in memory as specified in psABI. Prior to GCC 4.4, this was not the case. For example:

 union U {
 long double ld;
 int i;
 };

"union U" is now always passed in memory.

-Wchar-subscripts

Warn if an array subscript has type "char". This is a common cause of error, as programmers often forget that this type is signed on some machines. This warning is enabled by -Wall.

-Wno-coverage-mismatch

Warn if feedback profiles do not match when using the -fprofile-use option. If a source file is changed between compiling with -fprofile-generate and with -fprofile-use, the files with the profile feedback can fail to match the source file and GCC cannot use the profile feedback information. By default, this warning is enabled and is treated as an error. -Wno-coverage-mismatch can be used to disable the warning or -Wno-error=coverage-mismatch can be used to disable the error. Disabling the error for this warning can result in poorly optimized code and is useful only in the case of very minor changes such as bug fixes to an existing code-base. Completely disabling the warning is not recommended.

-Wno-cpp

(C, Objective-C, C++, Objective-C++ and Fortran only) Suppress warning messages emitted by "#warning" directives.

-Wdouble-promotion (C, C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++ only)

Give a warning when a value of type "float" is implicitly promoted to "double". CPUs with a 32-bit “single-precision” floating-point unit implement "float" in hardware, but emulate "double" in software. On such a machine, doing computations using "double" values is much more expensive because of the overhead required for software emulation.

It is easy to accidentally do computations with "double" because floating-point literals are implicitly of type "double". For example, in:

 float area(float radius)
 {
 return 3.14159 * radius * radius;
 }

the compiler performs the entire computation with "double" because the floating-point literal is a "double".

-Wduplicate-decl-specifier (C and Objective-C only)

Warn if a declaration has duplicate "const", "volatile", "restrict" or "_Atomic" specifier. This warning is enabled by -Wall.

-Wformat

-Wformat=n

Check calls to "printf" and "scanf", etc., to make sure that the arguments supplied have types appropriate to the format string specified, and that the conversions specified in the format string make sense. This includes standard functions, and others specified by format attributes, in the "printf", "scanf", "strftime" and "strfmon" (an X/Open extension, not in the C standard) families (or other target-specific families). Which functions are checked without format attributes having been specified depends on the standard version selected, and such checks of functions without the attribute specified are disabled by -ffreestanding or -fno-builtin.

The formats are checked against the format features supported by GNU libc version 2.2. These include all ISO C90 and C99 features, as well as features from the Single Unix Specification and some BSD and GNU extensions. Other library implementations may not support all these features; GCC does not support warning about features that go beyond a particular library’s limitations. However, if -Wpedantic is used with -Wformat, warnings are given about format features not in the selected standard version (but not for "strfmon" formats, since those are not in any version of the C standard).

-Wformat=1

-Wformat

Option -Wformat is equivalent to -Wformat=1, and -Wno-format is equivalent to -Wformat=0. Since -Wformat also checks for null format arguments for several functions, -Wformat also implies -Wnonnull. Some aspects of this level of format checking can be disabled by the options: -Wno-format-contains-nul, -Wno-format-extra-args, and -Wno-format-zero-length. -Wformat is enabled by -Wall.

-Wformat=2

Enable -Wformat plus additional format checks. Currently equivalent to -Wformat -Wformat-nonliteral -Wformat-security -Wformat-y2k.

-Wno-format-contains-nul

If -Wformat is specified, do not warn about format strings that contain NUL bytes.

-Wno-format-extra-args

If -Wformat is specified, do not warn about excess arguments to a "printf" or "scanf" format function. The C standard specifies that such arguments are ignored.

Where the unused arguments lie between used arguments that are specified with $ operand number specifications, normally warnings are still given, since the implementation could not know what type to pass to "va_arg" to skip the unused arguments. However, in the case of "scanf" formats, this option suppresses the warning if the unused arguments are all pointers, since the Single Unix Specification says that such unused arguments are allowed.

-Wformat-overflow

-Wformat-overflow=level

Warn about calls to formatted input/output functions such as "sprintf" and "vsprintf" that might overflow the destination buffer. When the exact number of bytes written by a format directive cannot be determined at compile-time it is estimated based on heuristics that depend on the level argument and on optimization. While enabling optimization will in most cases improve the accuracy of the warning, it may also result in false positives.

-Wformat-overflow

-Wformat-overflow=1

Level 1 of -Wformat-overflow enabled by -Wformat employs a conservative approach that warns only about calls that most likely overflow the buffer. At this level, numeric arguments to format directives with unknown values are assumed to have the value of one, and strings of unknown length to be empty. Numeric arguments that are known to be bounded to a subrange of their type, or string arguments whose output is bounded either by their directive’s precision or by a finite set of string literals, are assumed to take on the value within the range that results in the most bytes on output. For example, the call to "sprintf" below is diagnosed because even with both a and b equal to zero, the terminating NUL character ('