 Note: On or after November 9, 2005, you can no longer obtain XL C/C++ Advanced Edition for Mac OS X directly from IBM. See Announcement Letter 905-182 for important information about End of Marketing and End of Service dates for this product. XL C/C++ brings the mature and proven compiler technology of VisualAge C++ to users of the Mac OS X operating system. Features of this new compiler include:
- Compliance with past and present C and C++ language industry standards including ISO C 1999 (International Standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999), also known as C99, and ISO C++ 1998 (International Standard ISO/IEC 14882:1998).
- Ability to generate code specifically optimized for the Apple Power Mac G5.
- Binary compatibility and coexistance with GCC 3.3, including:
- Ability to use GNU C/C++ header files, the GNU linker, and the GNU assembler during compilation.
- Ability of compiled programs to use GNU C and C++ run-time libraries.
- Compatibility between g++ objects and object files compiled with XL C/C++.
- Ability to use gdb to debug programs, and gprof to profile programs.
- Features specific to the Mac OS X environment, including support for:
- Frameworks, such as Carbon APIs for C.
- AltiVec programming interface.
- Integration with the Xcode development environment.
- Documentation integration with the native Mac OS X help architecture.
- Industry-leading optimization and performance, using tools and compiler options proven on previous IBM C and C++ compilers, including:
- Various levels of the -O compiler option, that you can use to select mild to very aggressive program optimization, including the invocation of some or all of the compiler optimization options that follow below.
- -qpdf compiler option to enable profile-directed feedback, which can use results from sample program execution to fine tune optimizations in conditional branches and frequently-executed code sections.
- -qipa compiler option to enable the interprocedural analysis tool, which can help the compiler optimize across multiple source files on a "whole-program" basis.
- -qarch, -qtune, and -qcache compiler options that let you tune your application to specific processor architectures and environments.
- -qhot compiler option that enables high-order transformations to improve the performance of loops in your program.
- Interlanguage calls between XL C/C++ and Fortran let you include C and C++ code segments in your Fortran programs, and Fortran code segments in your C and C++ programs.
- Comprehensive and searchable documentation set integrated into the Apple Help Center, and also available in the following formats:
- Text readme files
- Man pages
- HTML files
- PDF books
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Technology Previews - OpenMP C/C++ V1.0 APIs and Objective-C
XL C/C++ includes a technology preview of OpenMP support. OpenMP is a specification of industry-standard APIs that support symmetric multiprocessor programming in C, C++, and Fortran. These APIs provide a simple and flexible interface for developing shared-memory parallel applications on any supporting platform. XL C/C++ has been extended to support using the Objective-C programming language to write to the Cocoa frameworks. Back to top See Announcement Letter 905-182 for important information about End of Marketing and End of Service dates. | 
