On Apr 21, 2022, at 1:50 AM, Daniela Engert <dani@ngrt.de> wrote:


Am 20.04.2022 um 22:51 schrieb Tom Honermann via SG15:
Let's consider a simple example (apologies if I'm behind the times when it comes to the most current compiler options available; I'd love to be informed if there are better options available)

$ cat t.cpp
import M;
int main() {
  f_from_m();
}

$ cat m.cppm
export module M;
export void f_from_m() {}

Gcc's driver is able to produce an executable with a single invocation so long as m.cppm appears on the command line before t.cpp. Nico explicitly stated he is accepting of such a restriction and so am I. The following example successfully creates a module cache directory (gcm.cache) containing a BMI (M.gcm) that is then used to compile t.cpp and produce an executable (t). This suffices for me so long as gcc will also handle a modularized standard library (I have no idea what is planned for that).

$ gcc -x c++ -std=c++20 -fmodules-ts m.cppm t.cpp -o t

As far as I know, Clang and MSVC both require multiple compiler invocations for the above example. For Clang it is necessary to prebuild the BMI, the both reference it as a BMI and compile it.

$ clang -std=c++20 --precompile m.cppm
$ clang -std=c++20 -fmodule-file=m.pcm m.pcm t.cpp -o t

Likewise, for MSVC:

$ cl /std:c++latest /c /TP /interface m.cppm
$ cl /std:c++latest /reference m.ifc m.obj t.cpp /Fet.exe

Thanks Tom. This happens to be the perfect example in regards to the original topic that Nico brought up. If you change the extension of the PMIU from .cppm to .ixx, then MSVC behaves the same as gcc and

$ cl /std:c++latest m.ixx t.cpp /Fet.exe

compiles and links. This works with more than one module on the same command line as well as long as the file order fulfills the dependency requirements (I assume the same is true with gcc and a future clang). The only difference is that (by default) the current directory serves as module cache directory. The behaviour and the results are just the same.

Thank you, Dani! I was somehow under the impression that /interface was still needed for the .ixx extension. Thanks for the correction!

Tom. 

Ciao
  Dani