Glossary
- runtime library
- Library implementing routines to allow compiled code to interact with
the runtime environment, such as the operating system. For example
the implementation of
malloc and friends belongs in the compiler
runtime library.
- MSVC
- Microsoft Visual C++
- The Microsoft standard C / C++ compiler. Part of Microsoft
Visual Studio.
- MSVS
- Microsoft Visual Studio
- The Microsoft toolchain for developing applications on Windows.
Components include MSVC (C / C++) as well as C#, other languages, and
an IDE.
- gcc
- The GNU compiler collection. When we mean the C or C++ compiler
specifically, we write “gcc c” or “gcc c++”.
- MSCRT
- Microsoft C runtime library - see MS runtime libraries and
table of MSVC versions and CRTs.
- glibc
- The GNU C runtime library
- mingw
- mingw: “a contraction of ‘Minimalist GNU for Windows’, is a
minimalist development environment for native Microsoft Windows
applications. It is a port of gcc to Windows that links against the
MSCRT rather than the gcc libc.”. Also see the mingw wikipedia
page.
- mingw-w64
- mingw-w64: “Mingw-w64 is an advancement of the original mingw.org
project, created to support the GCC compiler on Windows systems. It
has forked it in 2007 in order to provide support for 64 bits and new
APIs.” See: mingw-w64 history and the mingw-w64 wikipedia
section.
- binutils
- GNU binutils: a set of tools to work with compiler output, such as:
ld (the GNU linker); as (the GNU assembler); dlltool
(makes files for building and working with DLLs); ar (works with
archives of compiler object files). See also the binutils wikipedia
page.
- LTO
- Link-time optimization
- See: GCC LTO;
interprocedural optimization.
