Options Controlling C Dialect#
The following options control the dialect of C (or languages derived from C, such as C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++) that the compiler accepts:
- -ansi#
In C mode, this is equivalent to
-std=c90
. In C++ mode, it is equivalent to-std=c++98
.This turns off certain features of GCC that are incompatible with ISO C90 (when compiling C code), or of standard C++ (when compiling C++ code), such as the
asm
andtypeof
keywords, and predefined macros such asunix
andvax
that identify the type of system you are using. It also enables the undesirable and rarely used ISO trigraph feature. For the C compiler, it disables recognition of C++ style//
comments as well as theinline
keyword.The alternate keywords
__asm__
,__extension__
,__inline__
and__typeof__
continue to work despite-ansi
. You would not want to use them in an ISO C program, of course, but it is useful to put them in header files that might be included in compilations done with-ansi
. Alternate predefined macros such as__unix__
and__vax__
are also available, with or without-ansi
.The
-ansi
option does not cause non-ISO programs to be rejected gratuitously. For that,-Wpedantic
is required in addition to-ansi
. See Options to Request or Suppress Warnings.The macro
__STRICT_ANSI__
is predefined when the-ansi
option is used. Some header files may notice this macro and refrain from declaring certain functions or defining certain macros that the ISO standard doesn’t call for; this is to avoid interfering with any programs that might use these names for other things.Functions that are normally built in but do not have semantics defined by ISO C (such as
alloca
andffs
) are not built-in functions when-ansi
is used. See Other Built-in Functions Provided by GCC, for details of the functions affected.
- -std=#
Determine the language standard. See Language Standards Supported by GCC, for details of these standard versions. This option is currently only supported when compiling C or C++.
The compiler can accept several base standards, such as
c90
orc++98
, and GNU dialects of those standards, such asgnu90
orgnu++98
. When a base standard is specified, the compiler accepts all programs following that standard plus those using GNU extensions that do not contradict it. For example,-std=c90
turns off certain features of GCC that are incompatible with ISO C90, such as theasm
andtypeof
keywords, but not other GNU extensions that do not have a meaning in ISO C90, such as omitting the middle term of a?:
expression. On the other hand, when a GNU dialect of a standard is specified, all features supported by the compiler are enabled, even when those features change the meaning of the base standard. As a result, some strict-conforming programs may be rejected. The particular standard is used by-Wpedantic
to identify which features are GNU extensions given that version of the standard. For example-std=gnu90 -Wpedantic
warns about C++ style//
comments, while-std=gnu99 -Wpedantic
does not.A value for this option must be provided; possible values are
c90
c89
iso9899:1990
Support all ISO C90 programs (certain GNU extensions that conflict with ISO C90 are disabled). Same as
-ansi
for C code.iso9899:199409
ISO C90 as modified in amendment 1.
c99
c9x
iso9899:1999
iso9899:199x
ISO C99. This standard is substantially completely supported, modulo bugs and floating-point issues (mainly but not entirely relating to optional C99 features from Annexes F and G). See https://gcc.gnu.org/c99status.html for more information. The names
c9x
andiso9899:199x
are deprecated.c11
c1x
iso9899:2011
ISO C11, the 2011 revision of the ISO C standard. This standard is substantially completely supported, modulo bugs, floating-point issues (mainly but not entirely relating to optional C11 features from Annexes F and G) and the optional Annexes K (Bounds-checking interfaces) and L (Analyzability). The name
c1x
is deprecated.c17
c18
iso9899:2017
iso9899:2018
ISO C17, the 2017 revision of the ISO C standard (published in 2018). This standard is same as C11 except for corrections of defects (all of which are also applied with
-std=c11
) and a new value of__STDC_VERSION__
, and so is supported to the same extent as C11.c2x
The next version of the ISO C standard, still under development. The support for this version is experimental and incomplete.
gnu90
gnu89
GNU dialect of ISO C90 (including some C99 features).
gnu99
gnu9x
GNU dialect of ISO C99. The name
gnu9x
is deprecated.gnu11
gnu1x
GNU dialect of ISO C11. The name
gnu1x
is deprecated.gnu17
gnu18
GNU dialect of ISO C17. This is the default for C code.
gnu2x
The next version of the ISO C standard, still under development, plus GNU extensions. The support for this version is experimental and incomplete.
c++98
c++03
The 1998 ISO C++ standard plus the 2003 technical corrigendum and some additional defect reports. Same as
-ansi
for C++ code.gnu++98
gnu++03
GNU dialect of
-std=c++98
.c++11
c++0x
The 2011 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name
c++0x
is deprecated.gnu++11
gnu++0x
GNU dialect of
-std=c++11
. The namegnu++0x
is deprecated.c++14
c++1y
The 2014 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name
c++1y
is deprecated.gnu++14
gnu++1y
GNU dialect of
-std=c++14
. The namegnu++1y
is deprecated.c++17
c++1z
The 2017 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name
c++1z
is deprecated.gnu++17
gnu++1z
GNU dialect of
-std=c++17
. This is the default for C++ code. The namegnu++1z
is deprecated.c++20
c++2a
The 2020 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. Support is experimental, and could change in incompatible ways in future releases. The name
c++2a
is deprecated.gnu++20
gnu++2a
GNU dialect of
-std=c++20
. Support is experimental, and could change in incompatible ways in future releases. The namegnu++2a
is deprecated.c++2b
c++23
The next revision of the ISO C++ standard, planned for 2023. Support is highly experimental, and will almost certainly change in incompatible ways in future releases.
gnu++2b
gnu++23
GNU dialect of
-std=c++2b
. Support is highly experimental, and will almost certainly change in incompatible ways in future releases.
- -aux-info filename#
Output to the given filename prototyped declarations for all functions declared and/or defined in a translation unit, including those in header files. This option is silently ignored in any language other than C.
Besides declarations, the file indicates, in comments, the origin of each declaration (source file and line), whether the declaration was implicit, prototyped or unprototyped (
I
,N
for new orO
for old, respectively, in the first character after the line number and the colon), and whether it came from a declaration or a definition (C
orF
, respectively, in the following character). In the case of function definitions, a K&R-style list of arguments followed by their declarations is also provided, inside comments, after the declaration.
- -fno-asm#
Do not recognize
asm
,inline
ortypeof
as a keyword, so that code can use these words as identifiers. You can use the keywords__asm__
,__inline__
and__typeof__
instead. In C,-ansi
implies-fno-asm
.In C++,
inline
is a standard keyword and is not affected by this switch. You may want to use the-fno-gnu-keywords
flag instead, which disablestypeof
but notasm
andinline
. In C99 mode (-std=c99
or-std=gnu99
), this switch only affects theasm
andtypeof
keywords, sinceinline
is a standard keyword in ISO C99. In C2X mode (-std=c2x
or-std=gnu2x
), this switch only affects theasm
keyword, sincetypeof
is a standard keyword in ISO C2X.
- -fno-builtin, -fno-builtin-function#
Don’t recognize built-in functions that do not begin with
__builtin_
as prefix. See Other Built-in Functions Provided by GCC, for details of the functions affected, including those which are not built-in functions when-ansi
or-std
options for strict ISO C conformance are used because they do not have an ISO standard meaning.GCC normally generates special code to handle certain built-in functions more efficiently; for instance, calls to
alloca
may become single instructions which adjust the stack directly, and calls tomemcpy
may become inline copy loops. The resulting code is often both smaller and faster, but since the function calls no longer appear as such, you cannot set a breakpoint on those calls, nor can you change the behavior of the functions by linking with a different library. In addition, when a function is recognized as a built-in function, GCC may use information about that function to warn about problems with calls to that function, or to generate more efficient code, even if the resulting code still contains calls to that function. For example, warnings are given with-Wformat
for bad calls toprintf
whenprintf
is built in andstrlen
is known not to modify global memory.With the
-fno-builtin-function
option only the built-in functionfunction
is disabled.function
must not begin with__builtin_
. If a function is named that is not built-in in this version of GCC, this option is ignored. There is no corresponding-fbuiltin-function
option; if you wish to enable built-in functions selectively when using-fno-builtin
or-ffreestanding
, you may define macros such as:#define abs(n) __builtin_abs ((n)) #define strcpy(d, s) __builtin_strcpy ((d), (s))
- -fbuiltin#
Default setting; overrides
-fno-builtin
.
- -fcond-mismatch#
Allow conditional expressions with mismatched types in the second and third arguments. The value of such an expression is void. This option is not supported for C++.
- -ffreestanding#
Assert that compilation targets a freestanding environment. This implies
-fno-builtin
. A freestanding environment is one in which the standard library may not exist, and program startup may not necessarily be atmain
. The most obvious example is an OS kernel. This is equivalent to-fno-hosted
.See Language Standards Supported by GCC, for details of freestanding and hosted environments.
- -fgimple#
Enable parsing of function definitions marked with
__GIMPLE
. This is an experimental feature that allows unit testing of GIMPLE passes.
- -fgnu-tm#
When the option
-fgnu-tm
is specified, the compiler generates code for the Linux variant of Intel’s current Transactional Memory ABI specification document (Revision 1.1, May 6 2009). This is an experimental feature whose interface may change in future versions of GCC, as the official specification changes. Please note that not all architectures are supported for this feature.For more information on GCC’s support for transactional memory, see Enabling libitm.
Note that the transactional memory feature is not supported with non-call exceptions (
-fnon-call-exceptions
).
- -fgnu89-inline#
The option
-fgnu89-inline
tells GCC to use the traditional GNU semantics forinline
functions when in C99 mode. See An Inline Function is As Fast As a Macro. Using this option is roughly equivalent to adding thegnu_inline
function attribute to all inline functions (see Declaring Attributes of Functions).The option
-fno-gnu89-inline
explicitly tells GCC to use the C99 semantics forinline
when in C99 or gnu99 mode (i.e., it specifies the default behavior). This option is not supported in-std=c90
or-std=gnu90
mode.The preprocessor macros
__GNUC_GNU_INLINE__
and__GNUC_STDC_INLINE__
may be used to check which semantics are in effect forinline
functions. See Common Predefined Macros.
- -fhosted#
Assert that compilation targets a hosted environment. This implies
-fbuiltin
. A hosted environment is one in which the entire standard library is available, and in whichmain
has a return type ofint
. Examples are nearly everything except a kernel. This is equivalent to-fno-freestanding
.
- -flax-vector-conversions#
Allow implicit conversions between vectors with differing numbers of elements and/or incompatible element types. This option should not be used for new code.
- -fms-extensions#
Accept some non-standard constructs used in Microsoft header files.
In C++ code, this allows member names in structures to be similar to previous types declarations.
typedef int UOW; struct ABC { UOW UOW; };
Some cases of unnamed fields in structures and unions are only accepted with this option. See Unnamed Structure and Union Fields, for details.
Note that this option is off for all targets except for x86 targets using ms-abi.
- -foffload=disable#
Specify for which OpenMP and OpenACC offload targets code should be generated. The default behavior, equivalent to
-foffload=default
, is to generate code for all supported offload targets. The-foffload=disable
form generates code only for the host fallback, while-foffload=target-list
generates code only for the specified comma-separated list of offload targets.Offload targets are specified in GCC’s internal target-triplet format. You can run the compiler with
-v
to show the list of configured offload targets underOFFLOAD_TARGET_NAMES
.
- -foffload-options=options#
With
-foffload-options=options
, GCC passes the specifiedoptions
to the compilers for all enabled offloading targets. You can specify options that apply only to a specific target or targets by using the-foffload-options=target-list=options
form. Thetarget-list
is a comma-separated list in the same format as for the-foffload=
option.Typical command lines are
-foffload-options=-lgfortran
-foffload-options=-lm
-foffload-options="-lgfortran-lm
-lm"
-foffload-options=nvptx-none=-latomic
-foffload-options=amdgcn-amdhsa=-march=gfx906
-foffload-options=-lm
- -fopenacc#
Enable handling of OpenACC directives
#pragma acc
in C/C++ and!$acc
in Fortran. When-fopenacc
is specified, the compiler generates accelerated code according to the OpenACC Application Programming Interface v2.6 https://www.openacc.org. This option implies-pthread
, and thus is only supported on targets that have support for-pthread
.
- -fopenacc-dim=geom#
Specify default compute dimensions for parallel offload regions that do not explicitly specify. The
geom
value is a triple of ‘:’-separated sizes, in order ‘gang’, ‘worker’ and, ‘vector’. A size can be omitted, to use a target-specific default value.
- -fopenmp#
Enable handling of OpenMP directives
#pragma omp
in C/C++,[[omp::directive(...)]]
and[[omp::sequence(...)]]
in C++ and!$omp
in Fortran. When-fopenmp
is specified, the compiler generates parallel code according to the OpenMP Application Program Interface v4.5 https://www.openmp.org. This option implies-pthread
, and thus is only supported on targets that have support for-pthread
.-fopenmp
implies-fopenmp-simd
.
- -fopenmp-simd#
Enable handling of OpenMP’s
simd
,declare simd
,declare reduction
,assume
,ordered
,scan
,loop
directives and combined or composite directives withsimd
as constituent with#pragma omp
in C/C++,[[omp::directive(...)]]
and[[omp::sequence(...)]]
in C++ and!$omp
in Fortran. Other OpenMP directives are ignored.
- -fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=style#
ISO/IEC TS 18661-3 defines new permissible values for
FLT_EVAL_METHOD
that indicate that operations and constants with a semantic type that is an interchange or extended format should be evaluated to the precision and range of that type. These new values are a superset of those permitted under C99/C11, which does not specify the meaning of other positive values ofFLT_EVAL_METHOD
. As such, code conforming to C11 may not have been written expecting the possibility of the new values.-fpermitted-flt-eval-methods
specifies whether the compiler should allow only the values ofFLT_EVAL_METHOD
specified in C99/C11, or the extended set of values specified in ISO/IEC TS 18661-3.style
is eitherc11
orts-18661-3
as appropriate.The default when in a standards compliant mode (
-std=c11
or similar) is-fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=c11
. The default when in a GNU dialect (-std=gnu11
or similar) is-fpermitted-flt-eval-methods=ts-18661-3
.
- -fplan9-extensions#
Accept some non-standard constructs used in Plan 9 code.
This enables
-fms-extensions
, permits passing pointers to structures with anonymous fields to functions that expect pointers to elements of the type of the field, and permits referring to anonymous fields declared using a typedef. See Unnamed Structure and Union Fields, for details. This is only supported for C, not C++.
- -fsigned-bitfields, -funsigned-bitfields, -fno-signed-bitfields, -fno-unsigned-bitfields#
These options control whether a bit-field is signed or unsigned, when the declaration does not use either
signed
orunsigned
. By default, such a bit-field is signed, because this is consistent: the basic integer types such asint
are signed types.
- -fsigned-char#
Let the type
char
be signed, likesigned char
.Note that this is equivalent to
-fno-unsigned-char
, which is the negative form of-funsigned-char
. Likewise, the option-fno-signed-char
is equivalent to-funsigned-char
.
- -funsigned-char#
Let the type
char
be unsigned, likeunsigned char
.Each kind of machine has a default for what
char
should be. It is either likeunsigned char
by default or likesigned char
by default.Ideally, a portable program should always use
signed char
orunsigned char
when it depends on the signedness of an object. But many programs have been written to use plainchar
and expect it to be signed, or expect it to be unsigned, depending on the machines they were written for. This option, and its inverse, let you make such a program work with the opposite default.The type
char
is always a distinct type from each ofsigned char
orunsigned char
, even though its behavior is always just like one of those two.
- -fstrict-flex-arrays#
Control when to treat the trailing array of a structure as a flexible array member for the purpose of accessing the elements of such an array. The positive form is equivalent to
-fstrict-flex-arrays=3
, which is the strictest. A trailing array is treated as a flexible array member only when it is declared as a flexible array member per C99 standard onwards. The negative form is equivalent to-fstrict-flex-arrays=0
, which is the least strict. All trailing arrays of structures are treated as flexible array members.
- -fno-strict-flex-arrays#
Default setting; overrides
-fstrict-flex-arrays
.
- -fstrict-flex-arrays=level#
Control when to treat the trailing array of a structure as a flexible array member for the purpose of accessing the elements of such an array. The value of
level
controls the level of strictness.The possible values of
level
are the same as for thestrict_flex_array
attribute (see Specifying Attributes of Variables).You can control this behavior for a specific trailing array field of a structure by using the variable attribute
strict_flex_array
attribute (see Specifying Attributes of Variables).
- -fsso-struct=endianness#
Set the default scalar storage order of structures and unions to the specified endianness. The accepted values are
big-endian
,little-endian
andnative
for the native endianness of the target (the default). This option is not supported for C++.Warning
The
-fsso-struct
switch causes GCC to generate code that is not binary compatible with code generated without it if the specified endianness is not the native endianness of the target.