[Mingw-users] MinGW GCC 4.5.2 released

[Cesar S. <ces...@gm...>]

Dear MinGW community,

I am pleased to announce the mingw.org release of GCC 4.5.2.

GCC is the GNU Compiler Collection, a fairly portable optimizing
compiler.

This MinGW port generates code for 32-bit versions of Windows, and
should run on any 32- or 64-bit Windows operating system.

No local patches were used in this release.

New features:
-------------

* When linking C++ modules with shared libstdc++ (the default), the
   linker does not warn anymore about activating auto-import (needs
   binutils 2.21, at least).

* Fix missing symbols in the Objective C export library.

See also: http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/changes.html

General Notes:
--------------

* Shared libgcc: If all modules are linked with -shared-libgcc,
   exceptions can be thrown across DLL boundaries.  Note that this is
   the default for all languages other than C. To disable this, use
   -static-libgcc.

* Shared libstdc++: By default, C++ modules are linked with a DLL
   version of libstdc++. To use the static version, use the
   -static-libstdc++ flag.

   Note: When building and using DLLs, it is best in general not to use
   static libraries, to avoid the issue of having multiple copies of
   shared data. This applies to static libstdc++ as well.

* Translations into your language! See share\locale for a list of
   codes.  Unpack the translation archive in c:\MinGW and set the LANG
   environment variable to the code of your preferred language.

* Inline functions decorated with __declspec(dllexport) are still always
   generated and included in object files. This also applies to methods
   defined in classes decorated with __declspec(dllexport).
   This may cause a general increase in object size, since gcc generates
   copies of each dllexport'd inline function in all object files whose
   source includes the header defining the function.

Known Issues:
-------------

* The Java language is absent, pending resolution of build issues.

* The translation archive, when used, must be unpacked in c:\MinGW.

* The path "\mingw\include" on the current drive is always searched for
   header files, regardless of where the compiler is installed. So, if
   you want to keep multiple installations separated, better not to use
   "\mingw" on any drive.

Testsuite results:
------------------

The result of the testsuite run for this compiler is available at:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-testresults/2011-01/msg01022.html

Installing / upgrading:
-----------------------

Just (re)run the latest graphical mingw-get-inst installer. Remember to 
check the option to download the latest repository catalogues (not done 
by default).

 From the command line, with mingw-get:

1) First, run: mingw-get update
2) To install/upgrade the C compiler: mingw-get install gcc.
3) For each additional language: mingw-get install <lang>, where <lang> 
is one of: ada, c++, fortran or objc.

Regards,
Cesar