GNU toolchains

§§ every damn single GNU toolchain binary

NOTE:

<m>     - placeholder for machine tuple e.g. x86_64-linux-gnu
<v>   - placeholder for toolchain (gcc) version

GCC, under /usr/bin; Sometimes they are prefixed with machine tuples. Archlinux is x86_64 exclusive, therefore the prefixes are not necessary.

And, gcc seemingly overlaps binutils. Some of those are wrappers (see below)

From binutils:

compile stuffs:---
as              the assembler
ld              the linker. ld.bfd and ld.gold are two different
                implementation of ld. ld points to either of them
ld.bfd          "Binary File Descriptor". The older one. More support
                and compatability
ld.gold         "Gold". Newer, faster linker
objcopy         copy and translate object files / bin formats

combine stuffs:---
ar              handle archives;
                mostly, combine .o files into single .a
                linker could extract desired .o from .a
dwp             conbine DWARF object files (dwo) into single package
ranlib          generate index into archive

poke stuffs:------
strip           remove symbols, debug info etc. from obj files
elfedit         update header and program property of elf files

print stuffs:-----
objdump         display info about object files + dissambly
readelf         display info about elf files
addr2line       addr or symbol+offset into file + line number
c++filt         demangle c++ (and java) symbols
nm              list symbols from object files (+sizes)
size            list section size and total size of binary
strings         show printable chars in files

From gcc:

The "frontend" under /usr/bin
They are the user-facing programs that you may call directly

gcc             the GNU compiler "collection" all-in-one tool
cc              alias to (or same as) gcc
c89, c99        gcc wrappers with std=c89/99

g++             gcc with c++
c++             alias to (or same as) g++

cpp             C preprocessor

gcc-ar          wrapper of ar w/ --plugin=/../liblto_plugin.so
gcc-nm          wrapper of nm w/ liblto plugin
gcc-ranlib      wrapper of ranlib w/ liblto plugin

gcov            coverage testing tool
gcov-tool       offline gcda profile processing tool


The "backends" under /usr/lib/gcc/<m>/<v>/
They are internal binaries called by tools like gcc. You don't call it directly

cc1             the C Compiler
cc1plus         the C++ Compiler
collect2        wrapper of ld (from binutils); also wrapps around lto?
lto1            collect2 invokes it if -flto is enabled (indirectly via ld?)
lto-wrapper     called by collect2 ...  (ok this is twisted...but I won't worry
                about this level of "details")

Also check gcc/Makefile (configure first)

§§ misc:

Also gprof stuffs from binutils

gprof stuffs:

gp-archive
gp-collect-app
gp-display-html
gp-display-src
gp-display-text
gprof
gprofng
gprofng-archive
gprofng-collect-app
gprofng-display-html
gprofng-display-src
gprofng-display-text

comments from gcc/collect2.cc

/* !!! When GCC calls collect2, it does not know whether it is calling collect2
 *  or ld. So collect2 cannot meaningfully understand any options except those ld
 *  understands. If you propose to make GCC pass some other option, just imagine
 *  what will happen if ld is really ld!!!
*/