What is the difference between g++ and gcc?

Question

What is the difference between g++ and gcc? Which one of them should be used for general c++ development?

Answer 1

I became interested in the issue and perform some experiments

1. I found that description here, but it is very short.

2. Then I tried to experiment with gcc.exe and g++.exe on my windows machine:

   $ g++ --version | head -n1 
   g++.exe (gcc-4.6.3 release with patches [build 20121012 by perlmingw.sf.net]) 4.6.3
   
   $ gcc --version | head -n1
   gcc.exe (gcc-4.6.3 release with patches [build 20121012 by perlmingw.sf.net]) 4.6.3
   

3. I tried to compile c89, c99, and c++1998 simple test files and It's work well for me with correct extensions matching for language

   gcc -std=c99 test_c99.c
   gcc -std=c89 test_c89.c 
   g++ -std=c++98 test_cpp.cpp
   gcc -std=c++98 test_cpp.cpp
   

4. But when I try to run "gnu compiler collection" tool in that fashion:

   $ gcc -std=c++98 test_cpp.c
   cc1.exe: warning: command line option '-std=c++98' is valid for C++/ObjC++ but not for C [enabled by default]
   

5. But this one still work with no errors

   $ gcc -x c++ -std=c++98 test_cpp.c
   

6. And this also

   $ g++ -std=c++0x test_cpp_11.cpp 
   

p.s. Test files

$ cat test_c89.c test_c99.c test_cpp.cpp

// C89 compatible file
int main()
{
    int x[] = {0, 2};
    return sizeof(x);
}

// C99 compatible file
int main()
{
    int x[] = {[1]=2};
    return sizeof(x);
}

// C++1998,2003 compatible file
class X{};
int main()
{
    X x;
    return sizeof(x);
}

// C++11
#include 
enum class Color : int{red,green,blue}; // scoped enum
int main()
{
    std::vector a {1,2,3}; // bracket initialization
    return 0;
}

Findings:

1. If look at process tree then it seems that gcc, and g++ is backend to other tools, which in my environment are: cc1plus.exe, cc1.exe, collect2.exe, as.exe, ld.exe

2. gcc works fine as metatool for if you have correct extension or set correct -std -x flags. See this