Compilers

The single most significant change for developers migrating from the SunOS release 4 to the Solaris 7 operating environment is the unbundling of the C compiler. One of the factors that allowed the compiler to be unbunddled is the dynamic kernel. The compiler is no long required to reconfigure the kernel as devices are now automatically loaded by the kernel as needed.

The Sun WorkShop(TM) provides an ANSI C compatible compiler along with extensive an debugging and program development environment. This compiler produces executables in executable and linking format (ELF), the native object format of Solaris 7. lint and the lint libraries are also provided as part of the Sun WorkShop.

For details on the Sun WorkShop, see http://www.sun.com

The guide Making the Transition to ANSI C describes the differences between the C language implemented in the bundled Sun OS 4 C compiler and as implemented by the unbundled Sun WorkShop C compiler and should be consulted when porting source. The guide is viewable at http://docs.sun.com as part of Sun WorkShop Compiler C 4.2 AnswerBook Collection", under Programming/Languages.

The Sun WorkShop C Compiler provides a special option flag, -Xs, that will warn about language constructs that have differing behavior between K&R C and ANSI C. This is described in Sun WorkShop C User's Guide, which is also viewable at http://docs.sun.com in Sun WorkShop Compiler C 4.2 AnswerBook Collection.