cross compiler vs. native compiler

[der.hans]

Am 20. Mar, 2002 schwätzte Craig S. so:

> I was reading the 2.4.18 install documentation and am thinking some of
> my problems are stemming from older versions of gcc and make.
> While reading the install document for gcc there are two types of
> compilers discussed, native and cross. I am assuming that the original
> gcc package that came with slackware 7.1 is setup as a native compiler.
> Thought I would ask to see if this is correct.

Yes.

It might also be a cross-compiler. Cross-compilers are used to build for a
hardware architecture other than the one the compiler is running on. For
instance, the iPAQ has a strongarm processor, but you can use your x86
desktop to compile programs for the strongarm.

I think cross-compiling can be done by just giving some options to the
normal compiler ( provided it's setup to know how to cross-compile ). I
think that's what I did for the PPC a couple of years ago. Maybe we'll get
lucky and one of the guys who really knows this stuff will pipe up :).

Without that setup, the default should be to compile for the architecture
you're on, in other words work as a native compiler.

ciao,

der.hans
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