Re: C23 thoughts and opinions

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 22:49:39 +0100
bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 09/06/2024 21:40, Michael S wrote:

I can only tell you what works well for me. I can't force you to
use it. Also, I can't prevent you from trying to use something that
no longer works well due to absence of support, i.e. old msys/mingw.
 

 
I was trying to install the LATEST version of gcc on Windows! That
would 13.x, which I've done before, perhaps hitting on the right link
by chance.
 
'gcc' /can/ be run from a pure Windows command line, as I've been
using versions of it for years.
 
But they don't make it easy, as gcc is perceived to be tied to WSL
MSYS2 MINGW CYGWIN.
 
I've had another go at this elusive compiler, this time apparently
successful. Here are the steps I used:
 
* Start from mingw-w64.com. Ignore where it says it's a 'complete
   runtime environment for gcc'. There is also an actual compiler at
the end of the process!
 
* Click on Downloads on the left
 
* There is a list of prebuilt toolchains. The promising ones are
   w64devkit, MingW-W64-builds, and possibly WinLibs.com?
   I clicked on MinGW-W64-builds.
 
* That takes you down the page to MingW-Builds, but this is where I
had a bit of luck: as this is a one-line entry, I missed it and
starting reading about WinLibs.com instead. But where are the
downloads? The link is in the small print on the last line of that
section.
 
* It you to winlibs.com. This is looks disconcertingly like a 1990s
   website. It surely can't be the right place? Just don't click on
   MinGW-w64 as that just takes you back to square one.
 
* Scroll down to Downloads. There are 16 to choose from for each
   version. I clicked (by mistake - I think) on the version /with/
LLVM etc, but I  don't know what the difference is. I chose the MSVCRT
   version.
 
The end result was a 1.4GB installation of gcc 14.1.0. Using 'gcc
hello.c -Os -s' gives of 48KB (with 10.3 it was 88KB). It still
imports msvcrt.dll, but not printf (it does import vfprintf).
 

It sounds like you ended up with gcc distro based on 12 y.o. Microsoft
DLL that does not support majority of c11 library features and likely
does not support few c99 library features as well.
If you were a little less stubborn, in 10 minutes you could have have
distro based on new ucrt DLL that is closer to new C standard and
generates smaller binaries.
And likely occupies less than 1.4 GB.

BTW, I don't understand why MSVC produces smaller binaries with old MS C
RTL DLL while gcc produces smaller binaries with new MS C RTL DLL.
But that's undeniable fact.