I wonder if someone can comment on this situation: I'll do some testing
but I likely can't test everything.
I'm creating DSO's for GNU/Linux with GCC 4.9.2 right now. I want to
upgrade to GCC 6.2.0. My code is written in C++. I'm aware of the C++
STL ABI break in GCC 5.x.
I have users who will be using my library who are also writing C++ code
and they will be using older versions of GCC (I build my own GCC and I
use a specific sysroot for an older version of libc etc. so I know my
code will run properly on their system: they'll use their distribution's
version of GCC).
What I was thinking of doing was this:
1. Link my DSO with -static-libstdc++ and -static-libgcc
2. Ensure that no STL typed objects are passed across the ABI between my
library and its callers; also that no memory I allocate is freed by
the user and no memory the user allocates is freed by me (my library
also runs on Windows as a DLL so I already have this restriction).
3. Use a linker map to make all symbols in my DSO hidden except the
specific ones I want to be public. I use a linker map and not just
-fvisibility=hidden, so that all the symbols I've statically linked
from libstdc++.a will also be marked hidden (since libstdc++.a was
not compiled with -fvisibility=hidden).
Is this plan sufficient to allow people to link with my library and not
have their version of GCC's libstdc++.so interfere with my library's
version, so the different ABI's can coexist in the same program without
interfering with each other?
In other words, I can use std::basic_string and std::list in my library
and get the C++11 ABI from GCC 6.2 that I've statically linked, and
users can use std::basic_string and std::list in their code and get
their version of the libstdc++.so (presumably that is provided by their
GNU/Linux distribution) and all will work properly.
