Question Regarding C++ Support/Lib Directions

Clang Frontend
1

Hi All,

I had a question regarding the future of C++ support and the direction being taken regarding the STL.

To my knowledge there are quite a few implementations of the STL under various licenses, and with various features. For example, there's the SGI version, STLSoft, Dimkun, GNU, and other 'distributions' of the STL. Once clang has 'feature complete' C++ support what plans are there regarding which version of the STL to ship as default. Do you guys plan to simply keep the GNU runtime, or shift to some other one?

Also, what are the goals with respect to the runtimes supported by clang, especially with regards to the future of OS X? Do you simply want to have compatibility with the GNU runtimes, or do you envision a break from GNU at some point towards something developed in house?

Sorry if these are irrelevant questions, I'm just curious.

Thank you kindly,
Gregory Gelfond

2

Clang will have to be able to work with all of the important implementations of the C++ standard library. At a minimum, that means GNU libstdc++, the Apache C++ standard library, the Dinkumware C++ standard library, and possibly STLport. Clang doesn't even need to "ship" with a C++ standard library, since most systems already have on and we'll need to work with that standard library to interoperate with other compilers on that system. For example, Clang in LLVM 2.6 won't ship with a C library because we just use the system C library.

  - Doug