free C compiler for the mac

Ian Piumarta piumarta at prof.inria.fr
Fri Apr 17 01:13:50 UTC 1998


> where can I download a free compiler that support Squeak source code for
> the power Mac ?

To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing (unless there is a free
C compiler for MPW somewhere).  The most recent gcc that runs on the Mac is
ancient (1.3 or thereabouts) -- it almost certainly only produces 68k code.
The free compilers archive only lists one compiler (this version of gcc)
for the Mac, so I don't think there is a PPC-capable compiler available.

A couple of months ago I tried to install egcs (the "R&D" version of gcc)
using MPW, but failed because of a missing script in the Cygnus MPW support
suite.  (If anyone has a copy of "NewFolderRecursive", *please* send it to
me!)  This is a shame, because it successfully got past the config and
failed when trying to create the build tree.  So close, yet so far.  :-(

I posted a message to the egcs list asking if someone could send me the
script, and had a couple of promising replies that implied the existence of
a working set of MPW scripts at Cygnus that can build egcs for the
PowerMac.  These replies were "cc"ed to the person who I presume to be the
Mac expert at Cygnus, with the suggestion that he suck the latest MPW
support code out of their internal sources and release it -- but I never
heard back from him.  (Looking at the Cygnus ftp site, the Mac support
files are still the old ones from 1995.)  I'll try contacting him directly
about it.

In the meantime you might consider buying the academic version of
CodeWarrior, which is very reasonably priced.  It's has a nice IDE,
debugger, and documentation set -- and the compiler is pretty good too.  It
can generate PPC and 68k, and knows how to make "fat" binaries.  It also
comes with comprehensive MPW support, if that's important to you.  (I was
using CW10's MPW when trying to build egcs.)

If/when I manage to build egcs for the PowerMac, I'll make the binaries
available by anonymous FTP and post a message to this list.

(FWIW, I also asked MetroWerks about a rumour that they had a version of
gcc as a plugin compiler for CW.  They denied it, and added that there were
no immediate plans to create such a thing.)

Ian





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