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GNU Compiler Collection

GCC is the GNU Compiler Collection. Originally, it stood for "GNU C Compiler", but it now handles many different programming languages besides C. (For a brief period the the "compiler collection" variant was known as the EGCS Project and existed in parallel to GCC, but the former ECGS has now become the official GCC.)

GCC is a GPL-licensed compiler distributed by the Free Software Foundation, and a key enabling technology[?] for the Open Source Software (OSS) and Free software movements.

Originally written by Richard Stallman in 1987, GCC is now maintained by a varied group of programmers from around the world. It has been ported to more kinds of processors and operating systems than any other compiler.

GCC has been adopted as the main compiler used to build and develop for a number of systems, including GNU/Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, NeXTSTEP, and BeOS.

As of version 3.2, the standard compiler release includes front ends for:

Ada (GCC for Ada aka GNAT)
C
C++ (GCC for C++ aka G++)
Fortran (GCC for Fortran aka G77)
Java
Objective-C
Treelang[?]

A front end for CHILL[?] was previously included, but has been dropped due to lack of maintenance. Pascal, Modula-2, Modula-3, Mercury and Objective-C++[?] frontends also exist.

GCC target processors (as of version 3.2) include:

Lesser-known target processors supported in the standard release have included A29K[?], ARC, AVR, C4x[?], CRIS[?], D30V[?], DSP16xx[?], FR-30[?], FR-V[?], Intel i960[?], IP2000[?], M32R[?], 68HC11, MCORE[?], MMIX, MN10200[?], MN10300[?], NS32K, ROMP[?], Stormy16[?], V850[?], Xtensa[?]. Additional processors, such as the D10V[?] and Z8000[?], have been supported by GCC versions maintained separately from the FSF version.

The GCC homepage is at gcc.gnu.org (http://gcc.gnu.org/)