Using atomic operations in gcc 3.4.3

Question

The built in atomic operations were introduced in gcc-4.1.2. However, I am using gcc on OpenIndiana which only has gcc 3.4.3. Now my question is how to use atomic operations in gcc 3.4.3? Moreover I have tried to use gcc 4.6.1 in OpenIndiana but it doesnt work, as it complains about some runtime libraries. If anyone has successfully used it, kindly let me know.

Answer 1

I would suggest you to upgrade your GCC compiler. A GCC 3 is an ancient thing.

If you cannot install a newer version of GCC, you should try compiling a GCC 4.6.1 compiler from its source code. (don't forget to compile it in a build tree outside of the source tree, and don't forget all the dependencies).

You did not mention or explained why your compilation of GCC 4.6.1 failed. What runtime libraries did it complain about? Did you run ldconfig after installing it?

Answer 2

To add to existing answers - have you looked at Spec Files Extra Repository? I never used it myself but it seems like it offers gcc 4.6 compiler package.

Answer 3

GCC has great inline assembly support, so you could just use __asm to make your own variant of the various atomic ops. It'll be specific to your target platform however, so you'll need some good macros to switch to the right versions.

Answer 4

On Solaris, the alternative could be to fall back to libc atomic_ops(3C) interfaces. These might or might not get inlined, but they're guaranteed always available (and always behave in the same way) no matter which compiler you use.

Beyond that, I second the suggestion to either upgrade your gcc, and/or to get the SunStudio 12.2 compilers (they're royalty-free; even if you only use it for testing, code quality tends to go up if it's made to work with more than one compiler ...). Yes, it'll install/run on OpenSolaris-based distributions as well.