Non-GCC Cross Compilers?

Asmodeus asks: "Does anyone know of a commerical or commerically supported C++ cross compiler which is not GCC and which will target the complete gaumet of Enterprise platforms (including Win 32 DLLs). It must be hosted on Solaris and Windows NT/2K. GCC won't cut the mustard due to buggy sparc-64 bit support (incomplete target floating point implementation on host side) and the recent stability problems with 2.95+ have gotten people here a little nervous. I am currently not interested in compiling for embedded systems, only Enterprise grade platforms (and Win 32). The compiler must support shared library compilation for all target platforms, and ideally have a good debugger for all platforms. I've looked around at a lot of the compilers out there and it looks as if this is an area not many companies are interested in. [Note to GCC manics - I use it and I think it's great, but we have reached the limits of its capabilities..] Any suggestions greatfully received!"

Re:Metrowerks Codewarrior

[msuzio]

That's a nice idea, but Code Warrior on Linux is a front-end to GCC/EGCS, so I believe the same problem still exists... GCC won't do what the poster needs.

Re:you've got an itch...

[Asmodeus]

I'd love to. Unfortunately this is not something I have the time or hardware to do at home, and I don't think I'd be able to persude my boss to let me do it at work ;-( If anyone wants to donate me a 64bit sparc and a few 10s of k$ to pay the bills with....

Re:I've got a question

[Isomer]

I think it was when people started really pushing
GCC for Intel based processors - gcc generates
pretty good code for intel, but when you go to
a less used platform you discover that some of
the optimisations it makes are silly. GCC seems
to put emphasis on keeping the number of registers it
uses to a bare minimum, even on platforms that have
lots of registers for it to use. I guess a lot of
this is due to the fact that almost everyone has intel boxes, so that
platform works, but noone has Alpha's/Sparcs and the time to dedicate improving their compilers.

I've got a question

[jon_adair]

When did GCC become a steaming heap of crap? This is about the fifth time in the past two weeks I've seen someone complain about a limitation of GCC or bugs.

We used to be proud to use gcc instead of the expensive piece of crap cc that came with the machine. What happened? To much technology to keep up with? Too much attention to other pieces of software?

Commercial Cross Compilers

[marquise2000]

Comeau Computing (http://www.comeaucomputing.com) has a C++ compiler which is of very high quality (in terms of standards compliance). It is available for a quite large scale of platforms (Many Unix'es & Windovs). They also have a porting offer for custom platforms at reasonable prices. I haven't had any experience with this product yet, but the people at comp.lang.c++.moderated are often naming it as a reference.

Other GCC-based solutions?

[NaughtyEddie]

There was, at least a few years ago, a thriving industry making cross-compilers based on GCC, but with much better support for specific CPUs. One company, for instance, did a MIPS-specific backend which blew the open-source MIPS backend out of the water in terms of code size and speed. Perhaps you can find just such a company doing SPARC backends?

Just my $0.02

--
It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools.

you've got an itch...

[Karmageddon]

GCC won't cut the mustard due to buggy sparc-64 bit support (incomplete target floating point implementation on host side) and the recent stability problems with 2.95+ have gotten people here a little nervous. ... [Note to GCC manics - I use it and I think it's great, but we have reached the limits of its capabilities..]

did you ever think of actually fixing it? You've got an itch, scratch it.

Oh, and you did say,

Any suggestions greatfully received!

just a suggestion.