GCC ABI compatibility

Question

As far as I\'ve understood, it is not possible to link libraries that use different versions of GCC\'s Application Binary Interface (ABI). Are there ABI changes to every ver

Answer 1

Ugh, yikes.
How can you tell which gcc compiled a given binary? Here is the death notice from gcc-4.7.2-1-mingw32.README.txt :

Binary incompatibility notice!

The C and C++ ABI changed in GCC 4.7.0, which means in general you can't link together binaries compiled with this version of the compiler and with versions before GCC 4.7.0. In particular:

• The option -mms-bitfields is enabled by default, which means the bitfield layout follows the convention of the Microsoft compiler.

• C++ class-member functions now follow the __thiscall calling convention.

• The compiler now assumes that the caller pops the stack for the implicit arguments pointing to an aggregate return value. This affects functions returning structs by value, like the complex math type.