Introduction: The 15th version of the GNU Compiler Collection is set to be released, during which some changes will be locked.
GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 15 is being updated as planned, and a new front end for COBOL is being introduced. This upgrade will also bring significant improvements to the development of C and C++.
The latest status report did not provide much information but stated that “only regression and documentation fixes are open.” The report shows that there are only 17 priority 1 bugs remaining.
GCC release manager Richard Biener stated that GCC 15 is expected to be released at the end of April or early May. He mentioned that the actual release date will depend on whether all priority regressions from GCC 14 are resolved. GCC 15 is currently in the regression fix phase, which is the fourth stage.
With GCC 15, the C compiler will default to using C23 instead of C17, and the C++ compiler and standard library will begin to receive features from C++ 23 and C++ 26. Biener noted that with improvements in compilers and tools, C++ 20 modules are starting to become available.
“GCC 15 looks like a very good version, especially for C++ development,” he said.
Biener stated that support for the RISC-V architecture continues to develop rapidly, particularly in terms of vectorization and architecture support.
GCC 15 also introduces a front end for the COBOL language.
“As far as I know, COBOL is an interesting language that presents unique challenges for compiler backends,” Biener said. “There is still a significant amount of legacy software in production that relies on COBOL, so having another free compiler option is a good thing.”
However, the front end proposal for Algol 68 failed to pass the steering committee’s review.
Biener stated, “Compared to COBOL, I think Algol 68 has little practical or commercial significance, but I hope to add a front end in the future because Algol 68 has historical significance.” He expects Algol 68 to eventually be released with GCC 16.
A major new feature has already been merged: the COBOL front end. This has been in preparation for a long time—we studied it three years ago. Last Thursday, three large patches were merged: the COBOL front end, the libcobol standard library, and accompanying documentation.
We admit we haven’t counted, but according to Phoronix, this is an astonishing 134,000 lines of code. The new compiler is called gCobol, and it is a true native compiler: in other words, it takes COBOL source code and produces binary executable files.
Note that we should not confuse it with another GNU project (the older GNUCobol). GNUCobol (formerly known as OpenCOBOL) has been around for nearly 25 years, but it is not a true compiler: it translates COBOL source code into C source code, which is then compiled using GCC or Microsoft Visual Studio C.
Aside from the different ways of generating code, the two are also designed to comply with different versions of the official COBOL industry standards. GNUCobol is over 99% compatible with COBOL 2014, which is a 955-page document available on CD. The newer gCobol aims to comply with the newer COBOL 2023 standard, which is nearly a third longer at 1,229 pages. Both gCobol and GnuCOBOL are technically supported by the independent consulting company Cobolworx.
Therefore, when GCC 15 is released, COBOL will join the list of supported languages—C, C++, and Objective-C are built-in, while Ada 95, Fortran 77, and Pascal are distributed separately.
This time, ALGOL-68 will not be added to the compiler list.
The steering committee has decided not to merge the Algol 68 front end into the master branch for now, but has agreed to allow us to use a branch in gcc.git to develop and maintain the front end, as well as a mailing list at [email protected]. The source software friends have already set up the mailing list.
Development continues in its independent branch, with the code hosted on Sourceware, and more information is still available on the GNU site.
Of course, there is a significant non-technical difference between these two veteran high-level language clubs. COBOL is still widely used, although many companies are eager to get rid of it. On the other hand, ALGOL does not have such a situation; the classic ALGOL-60 was once widely used and has influenced nearly all imperative programming languages in the world today, from Ada to Zonnon.
Editor: Chang Zhang
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