Hi,

I am proud to announce a new major GCC release, 15.1.

• The D frontend now supports version 2.111.0 of the D programming language and run-time library.

• On supported targets, the version GNU_CET is now predefined when the option -fcf-protection is used. The protection level is also set in the traits key __traits(getTargetInfo, "CET").

• A new option -finclude-imports was added, which tells the compiler to include imported modules in the compilation, as if they were given on the command-line (analogous to dmd -i).

As and when DMD releases v2.111.1, it will be merged into GCC 15.2. Likewise regression fixes beyond v2.1xx.y will be backported into future minor releases for the next three years.

An online version of the GDC documentation and man pages are available here (also in PDF or PostScript or an HTML tarball)

For the full list of notable changes in other languages and targets, see the GCC 15.1 changes page.

This source release is available here, or from any of the WWW and FTP servers listed on the mirrors page (the release is in the gcc-15.1.0/ subdirectory).

If you encounter difficulties, while you may contact me directly, it is better to visit https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla and file a problem report.

GCC 16 development

Now the development cycle has started again, usually it would be time for the next round of have ambitions for changes to land during the next release cycle. However due to current circumstances (documented here), there likely won't be too many big changes being made over the next 6 months. With that said...

1. The "in-memory" preprocessing of C sources for ImportC is expected to land soon after being brewed in the cauldron for a couple years, though it will initially be without all predefined target macros being available. So some system headers will not be cleanly importable as-is.

2. For target specific built-in defines, GCC internally has three ugly macros which are not usable with any front-end language apart from C/C++. So the aim is to rewrite this part of the GCC back-end to expose them as common target hooks, then everyone benefits, not just D.

3. GDC will continue to be in sync with current DMD development throughout the release cycle so that the next version of GCC will also sport the latest release of the D language, whatever that release version will be.

There are - as always - more things to do than I have available hours to do them in, but if you feel you could help in any way, please don't hesitate to jump on the #gdc channel on the Dlang Slack or #d.gdc on Libera.Chat IRC.

If you are interested in helping support the on-going development of GDC, you can do so by making a donation to the D Language Foundation.

Finally, a big shout out and thank you to the kind sponsors over the years. You are all awesome.

Until the next major/minor release...

Regards,
Iain.

On Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:08:58 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

Thanks Iain for great work!

On Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:08:58 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

Ian, your work on GDC is greatly appreciated. Thanks for all your hard work from the bottom of my heart!

On Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:08:58 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

Excellent work Iain!

On Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:08:58 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

Thanks!

On Friday, 25 April 2025 at 14:08:58 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

Thank you Iain for your work. gcc / gdc are my primary compilers,
and having them is so easy to use on Linux thanks to all your work,
and distros just shipping it out of the box.

There:

I think the D section in GCC changes always lacks details.
I think it is not enough to just reference to D changes on some other website.

Most people do not even know D is in GCC, or by short section in GCC changes
notes, they think that nothing is happening with D in GCC, or it is abandoned.

I think it would be good to actually mention major work and changes since previous 14.x and 15.1. And if possible do so in the next versions.

Cheers.

On Thursday, 8 May 2025 at 17:34:06 UTC, WB wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. My feeling is listing all ~40 or so "compiler changes" since the previous sync'd version (2.108) would be a bit too much to mirror from the DMD change logs.

I'm also aware that almost all new features are contained within the DMD front-end, and the actual GDC code generator side is pretty stable - ignoring the relentless renaming of functions and fields in upstream DMD. :-)

What about either of the following:

• Pick a few notable changes from each release. Probably subjective.

• Restrict to listing changes that require some explicit support from the code generator (Placement new) or the driver/cli processing (-fpreview=safer)