Hi! On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 09:17:31AM +0000, unlvsur unlvsur via Gcc-help wrote: > > ________________________________ > From: unlvsur unlvsur <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2026 17:17 > To: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Subject: Any plans to integrate just binutils‑gdb into GCC? > > LLVM provides unified replacements for both binutils‑gdb and GCC (including > llvm, llvm‑ar, lld, lldb, clang, libc++, etc.), which makes adding support > for new platforms—such as WebAssembly—much simpler. Is there any intention to > consolidate binutils‑gdb with GCC to create a more integrated toolchain? > Adding a platform for compiler support to modify two projects is a huge > headache. > > Moreover, binutils-gdb itself already relies on dependencies GCC require > (gmp, mpfr, mpc etc). Just merge two project together so we can start to > phase out all the platform mess to eliminate cross compiler completely like > LLVM/clang do. Make native compiler itself a "cross compiler". In the future, > there will only be native vs canadian, no more "native vs cross" > --target=xxxx --sysroot= >
GDB is completely unrelated to GCC -- it can attach to *any* executable, whether compiled using GCC or not, whether compiled *at all* or not! binutils and GCC have always been set up so they work well together, designed with the other in mind. But the two projects are separate, and this is a good thing, nothing will be won by forcing them together, and much can be lost. What LLVM did is to have the compiler not generate assembly language, but an object file directly. This is a terrible idea. Throwing away a lot of flexibility, for essentially no benefit at all. Except when you think abandoning the way things have always been done is a good idea, heh. Revolutionaries! Already, since time immemorial, the normal way a compiler is set up is as a cross-compiler. GCC has some niceties to configure a lot of stuff automatically if that can be determined by looking at the build system (and that can go wrong very often, too), building a "native" compiler. You can build a normal (i.e. "cross") compiler targetting your build or host system as well. Segher
