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Mac Forum / Programming / CodeWarrior / January 2004Several questions about CW compatibility and etc.
Hi, I have questions about CW, most of which are trivial and thus just for my curiosity. But I hope there're some people who have knowledge, some free time and good will... ;-) On Mac OS X, 1. Why are the libraries and pre-compiled headers are needed to be rebuilt everytime CW is updated? Does this mean I have to obtain new versions of 3rd-party libs of which I don't have access to the source codes whenever the CW is updated? 2. Can I use libs built with gcc (or other build tools) with CW and vice versa? 3. Can CW build an application or static/dynamic libs without using MSL and Metrowerks' runtime lib? If so, what are the names and location of the C lib and runtime lib? 4. How good is MW C/C++ Compiler at optimizations, especially compared to apple-gcc? I heard MW C compiler is very generic. Thanks in advance. > But I hope there're some people who have knowledge, some free time and good > will... ;-) [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > 3rd-party libs of which I don't have access to the source codes whenever the > CW is updated? The pre compiled headers you use need to match the actual headers. Updates to cw often modify these and/or the source to msl, hence the need to rebuild these. A 3rd party lib does not need to be rebuilt > 2. Can I use libs built with gcc (or other build tools) with CW and vice > versa? I have. > 3. Can CW build an application or static/dynamic libs without using MSL and > Metrowerks' runtime lib? If so, what are the names and location of the C lib > and runtime lib? I use the BSD layer c library, In CW 9 there is project stationary for this > 4. How good is MW C/C++ Compiler at optimizations, especially compared to > apple-gcc? I heard MW C compiler is very generic. Don't know about this. Fred > Thanks in advance. > 1. Why are the libraries and pre-compiled headers are needed to be rebuilt > everytime CW is updated? Keep in mind that you have to recompile precompiled headers whenever something in the headers that are included in the precompiled header changed. So, if an update of CW also updated some MSL or runtime headers or code, you have to rebuild those libraries. In the past Metrowerks occasionally included changed libraries in updates, making the updates huge and thus hard to download for those without fast internet connections. > Does this mean I have to obtain new versions of > 3rd-party libs of which I don't have access to the source codes whenever the > CW is updated? The general answer is no. However, if the name mangling rules are tweaked by Apple (as it happened in the past for Mach-O due to problems in early versions of Mac OS X), you may need different libraries. > 2. Can I use libs built with gcc (or other build tools) with CW and vice > versa? If you could not, you could not link to any system libraries, could you? :-) > 3. Can CW build an application or static/dynamic libs without using MSL and > Metrowerks' runtime lib? If so, what are the names and location of the C lib > and runtime lib? You don't have to use MSL. What you need to do depends on the version of CW you are talking about. However, unless you have to for some reason, I would recommend to stick to MSL, which is IMHO much more reliable than the gcc C libraries. > 4. How good is MW C/C++ Compiler at optimizations, especially compared to > apple-gcc? I heard MW C compiler is very generic. Unless you and I have a different definition of "generic", you have it the wrong way around. CW is the compiler usally generating the fastest code and compiling fastest on Mac OS and Mac OS X (any version), while gcc is a slow big hog generating slow code most of the time (also it has been getting a bit better with every new Mac OS X version so far) because it is the "generic" compiler that also runs on many, many of other platforms... Thorsten First of all, thanks a lot for your insightful comments. > > 4. How good is MW C/C++ Compiler at optimizations, especially compared to > > apple-gcc? I heard MW C compiler is very generic. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > so far) because it is the "generic" compiler that also runs on many, > many of other platforms... True, and I heard that gcc is best at none. However, since mw c compiler is two-phase compiler, I suspect that approach, which enables the mw compilers to be available for so many platforms, could be somewhat less efficient for optimizing code for a specific platform. That's why asked this question. Any comment? Codewarrior was the best because it was much faster and easier to use than MPW, and more rapidly evolved than Think C. But my latest copy is pro 4, so I don't know how good it is today. > True, and I heard that gcc is best at none. However, since mw c compiler is > two-phase compiler, I suspect that approach, which enables the mw compilers > to be available for so many platforms, could be somewhat less efficient for > optimizing code for a specific platform. That's why asked this question. Any > comment? As said, there is no general answer, but for most people (including me) code generated by CodeWarrior is still faster than gcc code, but of course this may well depend on the specific application. CodeWarrior's optimiser is definetly able to get a whole lot out of a PowerPC, at least as far as integer performance is concerned. This is noticeable with most image/video compression algorithms which require a whole lot of manual tweaking to be fast on x86 even when using Intel's compiler there. At least that is my experience. Thorsten In article <WmPGb.88706$2We1.48534@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>, >Codewarrior was the best because it was much faster and easier to use than >MPW... Not in my experience. MPW did basic things (like starting up and opening windows) so much quicker than CodeWarrior. Also I think Apple's MrC generated better code than CodeWarrior. In article <WmPGb.88706$2We1.48534@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>, >True, and I heard that gcc is best at none. However, since mw c compiler is >two-phase compiler, I suspect that approach, which enables the mw compilers >to be available for so many platforms, could be somewhat less efficient for >optimizing code for a specific platform. That's why asked this question. Any >comment? Not true, there are two phases of optimization, one is done by the Intermediate representation phase, it parses the code optimizing it for loops inlining and stuff like this (global optimizations) there then is a back end which optimizes for the processor >Codewarrior was the best because it was much faster and easier to use than >MPW, and more rapidly evolved than Think C. But my latest copy is pro 4, so >I don't know how good it is today. We still do better code and do it faster than XCode using GCC. We dead strip code etc. Although Apple has made great strides it is still not as good as CodeWarrior. Sorry I wasn't around over the holidays to get to this sooner. Ron  SignatureMetrowerks, maker of CodeWarrior - "Software Starts Here" Ron Liechty - MWRon@metrowerks.com - <http://www.metrowerks.com> |
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