What is a GCC toolchain?

Question

In which ways it can be an example of C/assembly/object/executable compiler?

I would like more pieces of information than the few ones Wikipedia gives about it. Also, if you can link some sources where I could find more about it, it would be great.

Answer 1

From Wiktionary, a toolchain is:

A set of tools for software development, often used in sequence so that the output of one tool comprises the input of the next.

GCC is the GNU Compiler Collection; i.e. a set of compilers for different languages from GNU. From the official webpage:

The GNU Compiler Collection includes front ends for C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Ada, and Go, as well as libraries for these languages (libstdc++,...).

Therefore, the GCC toolchain is a set of applications and libraries to compile programs written in several languages. For instance, for the C and C++ languages, that includes tools like:

• cpp Preprocessor
• gcc C compiler
• g++ C++ compiler
• gcov Test coverage program

And accompanying libraries like:

• libbacktrace Symbolic backtraces producer
• libquadmath Quad-Precision Math Library
• libstdc++-v3 C++ Standard Library

Now, when someone refers to the GCC toolchain, typically they are also implicitly referring to other utilities that might not come from GCC's project/repository but are usually required for development. For instance, tools like:

• ar Archive manipulation program
• as Assembler
• c++filt C++ demangler
• ld Linker
• nm Object file symbol listing
• objdump Object file information dumper

If you are using the implementation of these tools from GNU, then you are using the GNU Binutils project:

The GNU Binutils are a collection of binary tools.