On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, Ian Lance Taylor wrote: > Some archealogy turned up this as the reason canonicalization was > inserted: > > http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2003-02/msg01121.html > http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2003-02/msg01697.html > > Also relevant here is http://gcc.gnu.org/PR29931 .
I am quite sure that the current behavior where one can have a symlink point to an installation of GCC anywhere else (outside of any path even) has been in place for quite a bit longer than 2003. On Sat, 29 Jan 2011, Dave Korn wrote: > I think the case which is particularly common is the alternatives > system, which has a chain of symlinks finally pointing to a real gcc. > (That works just fine with the current default, AFAIK, although that > may be only because the real gcc is in $PATH?) Nope, only the symlink(s) need to be in the path. And indeed this usecase that you and also Joseph describe is how I've been using it for many years. Given that this has een default behavior for so long (more than a decade from what I can tell), I'd recommend not changing it. Gerald