Macos – Mac OSX 10.6 compiler: a puzzling experience with 32 vs 64 bit

32bit-64bitgccmacososx-snow-leopard

I have trouble understanding the gcc compiler provided by OSX 10.6 snow leopard, mainly because of my lack of experience with 64 bits environments.

$ cat >foo.c
main() {}
$ gcc foo.c -o foo
$ file foo
foo: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
$ lipo -detailed_info foo
input file foo is not a fat file
Non-fat file: foo is architecture: x86_64

However, my architecture is seen as an intel i386 type (I have one of the latest Intel Core2 duo MacBook) 

$ arch
i386

and the compiler targets i686-apple-darwin10

$ gcc --version 
i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1 (GCC) 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)

Of course, if I compile 32 bits I get a 32 bit executable.

$ gcc -m32 foo.c -o foo
$ file foo
foo: Mach-O executable i386

but I don't get the big picture. The default setup for the compiler is to produce x86_64 executables, even if I have arch saying I have a 32 bit machine (why? Core2 is 64); even if (I guess) I am running a 32 bit kernel; even if I have a compiler targeting the i686-apple-darwin platform. Why? How can they run ? Should I compile 64 or 32 ?

This question is due to my attempt to compile gcc 4.2.3 on the mac, but I am having a bunch of issues with gmp, mpfr and libiberty getting (in some cases) compiled for x86_64. Should I compile everything x86_64 ? If so, what's the target (not i686-apple-darwin10 I guess)?

Thanks for the help

Best Answer

The default compiler on Snow Leopard is gcc4.2, and its default architecture is x86_64. The typical way to build Mac software is to build multiple architectures in separate passes, then use lipo to combine the results. (lipo only compiles single-arch files into a multiple-arch file, or strips archs out of a multi-arch file. It has no utility on single-arch files, as you discovered.)

The bitness of the compiler has nothing to do with anything. You can build 32-bit binaries with a 64-bit compiler, and vice versa. (What you think is the "target" of the compiler is actually its executable, which is different.)

The bitness of the kernel has nothing to do with anything. You can build and run 64-bit binaries when booted on a 32-bit kernel, and vice versa.

What matters is when you link, whether you have the appropriate architectures for linking. You can't link 32-bit builds against 64-bit binaries or vice versa. So the important thing is to see what the architectures of your link libraries are, make sure they're coherent, then build your binary of the same architecture so you can link against the libraries you have.

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