Compile c++14-code with g++

Question

I\'m using g++ 4.8.4 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. When trying to compile with \'-std=c++14\', I get this error:

g++: error unrecognized command line option \'-std=c+         


        

Answer 1

G++ does support C++14 both via -std=c++14 and -std=c++1y. The latter was the common name for the standard before it was known in which year it would be released. In older versions (including yours) only the latter is accepted as the release year wasn't known yet when those versions were released.

I used "sudo apt-get install g++" which should automatically retrieve the latest version, is that correct?

It installs the latest version available in the Ubuntu repositories, not the latest version that exists.

The latest GCC version is 5.2.

Answer 2

Follow the instructions at https://gist.github.com/application2000/73fd6f4bf1be6600a2cf9f56315a2d91 to set up the gcc version you need - gcc 5 or gcc 6 - on Ubuntu 14.04. The instructions include configuring update-alternatives to allow you to switch between versions as you need to.

Answer 3

For gcc 4.8.4 you need to use -std=c++1y in later versions, looks like starting with 5.2 you can use -std=c++14.

If we look at the gcc online documents we can find the manuals for each version of gcc and we can see by going to Dialect options for 4.9.3 under the GCC 4.9.3 manual it says:

‘c++1y’

The next revision of the ISO C++ standard, tentatively planned for 2014. Support is highly experimental, and will almost certainly change in incompatible ways in future releases.

So up till 4.9.3 you had to use -std=c++1y while the gcc 5.2 options say:

‘c++14’ ‘c++1y’

The 2014 ISO C++ standard plus amendments. The name ‘c++1y’ is deprecated.

It is not clear to me why this is listed under Options Controlling C Dialect but that is how the documents are currently organized.

Answer 4

The -std=c++14 flag is not supported on GCC 4.8. If you want to use C++14 features you need to compile with -std=c++1y. Using godbolt.org it appears that the earilest version to support -std=c++14 is GCC 4.9.0 or Clang 3.5.0