What is the purpose of features.h header? - linux

What is the purpose of the features.h header? Why and when can it be used in my code?
Does it define source features supported by the system?
Or does it define some additional things which must be defined depending on other defines?

The features.h header file provides various macro definitions that indicate standard conformance to other header files, i.e. which features (hence the name) should be turned on or off depending on which standard the user wishes to use.
Most C/C++ compilers have command line options to handle standards conformance. Let's take GCC as an example: when you pass the -std=gnu9x option, you ask for the GNU dialect of the C99 standard. The features.h header makes sure that all other headers that include it will turn exactly those features on or off that are needed to support this particular dialect. This is achieved by #define -ing or #undef - ing some "intermediate" macros.
As a bonus, features.h also provides the glibc version information macros as well, and various other bits & bobs.

I have grepped POSIX 7 as explained at: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/340285/install-the-latest-posix-man-pages/483198#483198 and there are no hits for features.h, so it must be a glibc extension only.
In glibc 2.28, it is present at include/features.h.
One of the interesting things that it defines are version macros:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <features.h>
int main(void) {
printf("__GLIBC__ %u\n", __GLIBC__);
printf("__GLIBC_MINOR__ %u\n", __GLIBC_MINOR__);
return 0;
}
Ubuntu 16.04, which has glibc 2.23, this outputs:
__GLIBC__ 2
__GLIBC_MINOR__ 23
See also: Check glibc version for a particular gcc compiler
Also, this header seems to get included in most / all glibc headers, which might allow you to check if glibc is being used: How to tell if glibc is used but TODO I couldn't find a documentation for that.

From features.h File Reference
Defines on whether to include algorithm variants.
Less variants reduce executable size and compile time. This file is a GNU parallel extension to the Standard C++ Library.
So this file will include some algorithm listed in the reference page.

In general if you need to use any of the variables or functions defined in a header file, you need to include it in your program. This rule is valid for features.h also. You can see a URL for features.h for your reference below:
http://repo-genesis3.cbi.utsa.edu/crossref/heccer/usr/include/features.h.html

Related

AC_CHECK_HEADERS: define a macro before testing for header presence

A particular C++ logging library called spdlog that I use in my project has a broken package on CentOS (the platform I'm trying to compile on) where the header file will only compile if SPDLOG_FMT_EXTERNAL is defined before any of its files are included. [And this will not be fixed.]
I am trying to find a way to use autoconf directives to test for the presence of this header file - previously I used a homegrown macro that compiles a program which uses that, but its speed latency is unacceptably slow so I am trying to replace it.
Here is the relevant snippet of my configure.ac:
dnl check for libfmt is done earlier...
AC_CHECK_HEADERS([spdlog/spdlog.h], [have_spdlog="yes"], [have_spdlog="no"])
if test x$have_spdlog = xyes; then
LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -lspdlog -lfmt";
else
AC_MSG_ERROR([spdlog is required for logging support but is missing.])
fi
The header file spdlog/spdlog.h exists, but Autoconf deems it as not usable because it won't compile by itself.
AC_CHECK_HEADERS has a parameter I can specify include files required to include that particular header file. I can use that to specify the #define macro before the file is included.
Is there an easier way to just directly specify a macro without creating a new header file?
After some experimenting, I learned that the fourth parameter to AC_CHECK_HEADERS accepts macros as well - anything that can be used in a C/C++ preprocessor works as well, such as #ifdef, #endif and so on. It is not restricted to only #include directives.
AC_CHECK_HEADERS([spdlog/spdlog.h], [have_spdlog="yes"], [have_spdlog="no"], [
#define SPDLOG_FMT_EXTERNAL
])

Where to get iostream.h

I'm trying to make something in Linux, but it complains that it can't find iostream.h. What do I need to install to get this file?
The correct name of this standard header is just iostream without an extension.
If your compiler still cannot find it, try the following:
find /usr/include -name iostream -type f -print
...and add it to your include path, following your compiler's documentation.
The header <iostream.h> is an antiquated header from before C++ became standardized as ISO C++ 1998 (it is from the C++ Annotated Reference Manual). The standard C++ header is <iostream>. There are some minor differences between the two, with the biggest difference being that <iostream> puts the included contents in namespace std, so you have to qualify cin, cout, endl, istream, etc. with "std::". As somewhat of a hack (it is a hack because header files should never contain "using" directives as they completely defeat the purpose of namespaces), you could define "iostream.h" as follows:
#ifndef HEADER_IOSTREAM_H
#define HEADER_IOSTREAM_H
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; // Beware, this completely defeats the whole point of
// having namespaces and could lead to name clashes; on the
// other hand, code that still includes <iostream.h> was
// probably created before namespaces, anyway.
#endif
While this is not exactly identical to the original antiquated header, this should be close enough for most purposes (i.e. there should be either nothing or very few things that you will have to fix).
I needed to compile partport on Debian and had problems (CentOS 4.5 worked fine). I did this without any success:
ln -s /usr/include/c++/4.5/iostream /usr/include/c++/4.5/iostream.h
I discovered that iostream.h was provided from C++, and I found it on CentOS 4.5.
So I copied the file iostream.h from CentOS 4.5 to Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal), and it worked:
scp root#ip.centos-4.5:/usr/include/c++/3.3.4/backward/iostream.h /usr/include/c++/4.5/iostream.h

unistd.h related difficulty when compiling bison & flex program under vc++

I'm using bison & flex (downloaded via cygwin) with vc++. When I compile the program I got an error:
...: fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'unistd.h': No such file or directory
The corresponding code in the flex-generated file is:
#ifndef YY_NO_UNISTD_H
/* Special case for "unistd.h", since it is non-ANSI. We include it way
* down here because we want the user's section 1 to have been scanned first.
* The user has a chance to override it with an option.
*/
/* %if-c-only */
#include <unistd.h>
/* %endif */
/* %if-c++-only */
/* %endif */
#endif
If I define YY_NO_UNISTD_H in the flex file(.l) this error will disappear, but I get several other errors:
...: error C2447: '{' : missing function header (old-style formal list?)
...: warning C4018: '<' : signed/unsigned mismatch
...: error C3861: 'isatty': identifier not found
How can I fix this problem?
All these errors occur in the flex-generated scanner.
I know it's because unistd.h doesn't exist in windows. Do I have to write my own unistd.h? If so how to write it in order to eliminate those errors?
isatty is used by the lexer to determine if the input stream is a terminal or a pipe/file. The lexer uses this information to change its caching behavior (the lexer reads large chunks of the input when it is not a terminal). If you know that your program will never be used in an interactive kind, you can add %option never-interactive to you lexer. When the program is run with user input, use %option interactive. When both uses are desired, you can either generate an interactive lexer, which gives a performance loss when used in batch mode, or provide your own isatty function.
Use %option nounistd in your .l file to remove the dependence on unistd.h.
just in case somebody's still this problem, Flex comes with unistd.h within its devel files. I found this here:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=931222&group_id=23617&atid=379173
to put it short, just make sure your compiler can reach it. in my case it's just adding "C:\GnuWin32\include" to the additional inclusion directories
use win_flex.exe with option --wincompat and you dont need to hack your lex file
unistd.h is a UNIX header, so it's not present in VC++; your best bet is probably to compile it using g++ in Cygwin (or mingw/msys). You could also look at this question for other suggestions.
I'm using flex 2.5.4 that comes from the GnuWin32 project, which doesn't check for YY_NO_UNISTD_H.
In my version, Flex looks for unistd.h only when being compiled as C++, so you can save yourself all this trouble if your yylval doesn't use any C++ constructs.
I had to use the STL in yylval (using a pointer to make it a POD type), so in order to make flex compile in C++ I created this simple unistd.h:
#include <io.h>
That's all it takes (actually, I could copy the unistd.h file that comes with GnuWin32, like flyontheweb suggests).
P.S. To wrap things up: in Bison I put yylval's required STL header files in %code requires {} and added the current directory to the INCLUDE paths in my makefile.
I am too late but anyway I will share my findings to save someone still looking for answer.
In my case having an empty unistd.h file in the location where compiler looks for headers works for me.
Well this post is old but I face the same problem and here is something that should work.
WinFlexBison
I ran into this problem recently after upgrading to Angular 14.
npm install -g latest-version
resolved my issue.

Why are there so many libraries in MSVC and why do I have to recompile the code again

In every platform there are various versions of a given library: multi-threaded, debug, dynamic, etc..
Correct me if I am wrong here, but in Linux an object can link to any version of a library just fine, regardless of how its compiled. For example, there is no need to use any special flags at compile time to specify whether the link will eventually be to a dynamic or a static version of the run-time libraries (clarification: I am not talking about creating dynamic/static libraries, I am talking about linking to them - so -fPIC doesn't apply). Same goes for debug or optimized version of libraries.
Why in MSVC (Windows in general with other compilers. true?) I need to recompile the code every time in order to link to different versions of libraries? I am talking the /MD, /MT, /MTd, /MDd, etc flags. Is the code actually using different system headers each time. If so, why?
I would really appreciate any pointers to solid documentation that discusses these library matters in Windows for a C/C++ programmer..
thanks!
The compiler setting does very little other than simple change some macro definitions. Its microsoft's c-runtime header files that change their behaviour based on the runtime selected.
First, the header files use a # pragma directive to embed in the object file a directive specifying which .lib file to include, choosing one of: msvcrt.lib, msvcrtd.lib, libcmt.lib and mibcmtd.lib
The directives look like this
#ifdef <release dll runtime>
#pragma comment(lib,"msvcrt.lib")
#endif
Next, it also modifies a macro definition used on all c-rt functions that adds the __declspec(dllimport) directive if a dll runtime was selected. the effect of this directive is to change the imported symbol from, say, '_strcmp' to '__imp__strcmp'.
The dll import libraries (msvcrt.lib and msvcrtd.lib) export their symbols (to the linker) as __imp_<function name>, which means that, in the Visual C++ world, once you have compiled code to link against the dll runtimes you cannot change your mind - they will NOT link against a static runtime.
Of course, the reverse is not the case - dll import libraries actually export their public symbols both ways: with and without the __imp_ prefix.
Which means that code built against a static runtime CAN be later co-erced into linking with the dll or static runtimes.
If you are building a static library for other consumers, you should ensure that your compiler settings include:
One of the static library settings, so that consumers of your .lib can choose themselves which c-runtime to use, and
Set the 'Omit Default Library Name' (/Zl)flag. This tells the compiler to ignore the #pragma comment(lib,... directives, so the obj files and resulting lib does NOT have any kind of implicit runtime dependency. If you don't do this, users of your lib who choose a different runtime setting will see confusing messages about duplicate symbols in libc.lib and msvcrt.lib which they will have to bypass by using the ignore default libraries flag.
These using these compiler options have two effects. The automatically #define a macro that may be used by header files (and your own code) to do different things. This effects only a small part of the C runtime, and you can check the headers to see if it's happening in your case.
The other thing is that the C++ compiler embeds a comment in your object file that tells the linker to automatically include a particular flavor of the MSVC runtime, whether you specify that library at link time or not.
This is convenient for small programs, where you simply type at a command prompt cl myprogram.cpp to compile and link, producing myprogram.exe.
You can defeat automatic linking of the commented-in flavor of the c-runtime by passing /nodefaultlib to the linker. And then specify a different flavor of the c-runtime instead. This will work if you are careful not to depend on the #defines for _MT and
_DLL (keep in mind that the standard C headers might be looking at these also).
I don't recommend this, but if you have a reason to need to do this, it can be made to work in most cases.
If you want to know what parts of the C header files behave differently, you should just search for _MT and _DLL in the headers and see.
All of the options use the same header files, however they all imply different #define which affect the header files. So they need to be recompiled.
The switches also link to the appropriate library, but the recompile is not because of the linking.
See here for a list of what is defined when you use each.

Standard Template Library using g++

While migrating a program from windows in linux I encountered a problem using the c++ standard template library. I am trying to typedef a template and I am getting the error 'expected initializer before '<' token on this line
typedef std::list< std::pair< int,double> > PairList;
Any ideas why this would work using mvc++ and not using g++ and how I can fix it?
I think this is about #includes.
The following really minimal piece of code compiles perfectly here with g++ on Linux
#include <utility>
#include <list>
typedef std::list< std::pair< int,double> > PairList;
PairList x;
One thing to remember about standard include files is that they are allowed but not required to call each other. (It's not like they're potentially polluting the namespace by this, since they all use namespace std, which you aren't supposed to mess with.)
It is possible that, in MSVC++, includes , or vice versa, but this is not the case in the g++ headers. Therefore, a program might compile in MSVC++ and not in g++, with a required header missing in the source.
Make sure all of your required headers are actually included, and you should be fine.
Did you #include <utility> for pair?
I have had no problems with the code in G++, and generally found its STL support to be superb. Do you have all the #include directives there? Sometimes those differ from platform to platform (even when they shouldn't).

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