[Python-Dev] C99

[Sturla Molden]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:

> I may be talking through my hat here, but Apple has been using LLVM
> for several major releases now.  They seem to be keeping the GCC
> frontend stuck at 4.2.1, though.  So just because we've been using GCC
> 4.2.1 on Mac, including on buildbots, doesn't mean that there is no
> C99 compiler available on Macs -- it's quite possible that the
> available clang frontend does already support the C99 features we
> would use.  I suppose that might mean fiddling with the installer
> build process as well as the buildbots.

On OSX 10.8 and earlier, the default CC is llvm-gcc-4.2.1, available as the
gcc command. clang is also installed, so we can always 

    $ export CC=clang
    $ export CXX=clang++

to remedy the problem.

On OSX 10.9 and later, gcc is just a symlink to clang.

Xcode must be installed to build anything on Mac. It is not optional. Users
who need to build Python without installing Xcode need to fix their heads.
Because that is where their problem resides. There is no remedy for
stubbornness to the level of stupidity. Either they install Xcode or they
don't get to build anything. 


Sturla