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NAME

       gcj - Ahead-of-time compiler for the Java language

SYNOPSIS

       gcj [-Idir...] [-d dir...]
           [--CLASSPATH=path] [--classpath=path]
           [-foption...] [--encoding=name]
           [--main=classname] [-Dname[=value]...]
           [-C] [--resource resource-name] [-d directory]
           [-Wwarn...]
           sourcefile...

DESCRIPTION

       As gcj is just another front end to gcc, it supports many of the same
       options as gcc.    This manual only documents the options specific to
       gcj.

OPTIONS

   Input and output files
       A gcj command is like a gcc command, in that it consists of a number of
       options and file names.  The following kinds of input file names are
       supported:

       file.java
           Java source files.

       file.class
           Java bytecode files.

       file.zip
       file.jar
           An archive containing one or more ".class" files, all of which are
           compiled.  The archive may be compressed.  Files in an archive
           which don't end with .class are treated as resource files; they are
           compiled into the resulting object file as core: URLs.

       @file
           A file containing a whitespace-separated list of input file names.
           (Currently, these must all be ".java" source files, but that may
           change.)  Each named file is compiled, just as if it had been on
           the command line.

       library.a
       library.so
       -llibname
           Libraries to use when linking.  See the gcc manual.

       You can specify more than one input file on the gcj command line, in
       which case they will all be compiled.  If you specify a "-o FILENAME"
       option, all the input files will be compiled together, producing a
       single output file, named FILENAME.  This is allowed even when using
       "-S" or "-c", but not when using "-C" or "--resource".  (This is an
       extension beyond the what plain gcc allows.)  (If more than one input
       file is specified, all must currently be ".java" files, though we hope
       to fix this.)

   Input Options
       gcj has options to control where it looks to find files it needs.  For
       instance, gcj might need to load a class that is referenced by the file
       it has been asked to compile.  Like other compilers for the Java
       language, gcj has a notion of a class path.  There are several options
       and environment variables which can be used to manipulate the class
       path.  When gcj looks for a given class, it searches the class path
       looking for matching .class or .java file.  gcj comes with a built-in
       class path which points at the installed libgcj.jar, a file which
       contains all the standard classes.

       In the text below, a directory or path component can refer either to an
       actual directory on the filesystem, or to a .zip or .jar file, which
       gcj will search as if it is a directory.

       -Idir
           All directories specified by "-I" are kept in order and prepended
           to the class path constructed from all the other options.  Unless
           compatibility with tools like "javac" is important, we recommend
           always using "-I" instead of the other options for manipulating the
           class path.

       --classpath=path
           This sets the class path to path, a colon-separated list of paths
           (on Windows-based systems, a semicolon-separate list of paths).
           This does not override the builtin ("boot") search path.

       --CLASSPATH=path
           Deprecated synonym for "--classpath".

       --bootclasspath=path
           Where to find the standard builtin classes, such as
           "java.lang.String".

       --extdirs=path
           For each directory in the path, place the contents of that
           directory at the end of the class path.

       CLASSPATH
           This is an environment variable which holds a list of paths.

       The final class path is constructed like so:

       o   First come all directories specified via "-I".

       o   If --classpath is specified, its value is appended.  Otherwise, if
           the "CLASSPATH" environment variable is specified, then its value
           is appended.  Otherwise, the current directory (".") is appended.

       o   If "--bootclasspath" was specified, append its value.  Otherwise,
           append the built-in system directory, libgcj.jar.

       o   Finally, if "--extdirs" was specified, append the contents of the
           specified directories at the end of the class path.  Otherwise,
           append the contents of the built-in extdirs at
           "$(prefix)/share/java/ext".

       The classfile built by gcj for the class "java.lang.Object" (and placed
       in "libgcj.jar") contains a special zero length attribute
       "gnu.gcj.gcj-compiled". The compiler looks for this attribute when
       loading "java.lang.Object" and will report an error if it isn't found,
       unless it compiles to bytecode (the option
       "-fforce-classes-archive-check" can be used to override this behavior
       in this particular case.)

       -fforce-classes-archive-check
           This forces the compiler to always check for the special zero
           length attribute "gnu.gcj.gcj-compiled" in "java.lang.Object" and
           issue an error if it isn't found.

       -fsource=VERSION
           This option is used to choose the source version accepted by gcj.
           The default is 1.5.

   Encodings
       The Java programming language uses Unicode throughout.  In an effort to
       integrate well with other locales, gcj allows .java files to be written
       using almost any encoding.  gcj knows how to convert these encodings
       into its internal encoding at compile time.

       You can use the "--encoding=NAME" option to specify an encoding (of a
       particular character set) to use for source files.  If this is not
       specified, the default encoding comes from your current locale.  If
       your host system has insufficient locale support, then gcj assumes the
       default encoding to be the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode.

       To implement "--encoding", gcj simply uses the host platform's "iconv"
       conversion routine.  This means that in practice gcj is limited by the
       capabilities of the host platform.

       The names allowed for the argument "--encoding" vary from platform to
       platform (since they are not standardized anywhere).  However, gcj
       implements the encoding named UTF-8 internally, so if you choose to use
       this for your source files you can be assured that it will work on
       every host.

   Warnings
       gcj implements several warnings.  As with other generic gcc warnings,
       if an option of the form "-Wfoo" enables a warning, then "-Wno-foo"
       will disable it.  Here we've chosen to document the form of the warning
       which will have an effect -- the default being the opposite of what is
       listed.

       -Wredundant-modifiers
           With this flag, gcj will warn about redundant modifiers.  For
           instance, it will warn if an interface method is declared "public".

       -Wextraneous-semicolon
           This causes gcj to warn about empty statements.  Empty statements
           have been deprecated.

       -Wno-out-of-date
           This option will cause gcj not to warn when a source file is newer
           than its matching class file.  By default gcj will warn about this.

       -Wno-deprecated
           Warn if a deprecated class, method, or field is referred to.

       -Wunused
           This is the same as gcc's "-Wunused".

       -Wall
           This is the same as "-Wredundant-modifiers -Wextraneous-semicolon
           -Wunused".

   Linking
       To turn a Java application into an executable program, you need to link
       it with the needed libraries, just as for C or C++.  The linker by
       default looks for a global function named "main".  Since Java does not
       have global functions, and a collection of Java classes may have more
       than one class with a "main" method, you need to let the linker know
       which of those "main" methods it should invoke when starting the
       application.  You can do that in any of these ways:

       o   Specify the class containing the desired "main" method when you
           link the application, using the "--main" flag, described below.

       o   Link the Java package(s) into a shared library (dll) rather than an
           executable.  Then invoke the application using the "gij" program,
           making sure that "gij" can find the libraries it needs.

       o   Link the Java packages(s) with the flag "-lgij", which links in the
           "main" routine from the "gij" command.  This allows you to select
           the class whose "main" method you want to run when you run the
           application.  You can also use other "gij" flags, such as "-D"
           flags to set properties.  Using the "-lgij" library (rather than
           the "gij" program of the previous mechanism) has some advantages:
           it is compatible with static linking, and does not require
           configuring or installing libraries.

       These "gij" options relate to linking an executable:

       --main=CLASSNAME
           This option is used when linking to specify the name of the class
           whose "main" method should be invoked when the resulting executable
           is run.

       -Dname[=value]
           This option can only be used with "--main".  It defines a system
           property named name with value value.  If value is not specified
           then it defaults to the empty string.  These system properties are
           initialized at the program's startup and can be retrieved at
           runtime using the "java.lang.System.getProperty" method.

       -lgij
           Create an application whose command-line processing is that of the
           "gij" command.

           This option is an alternative to using "--main"; you cannot use
           both.

       -static-libgcj
           This option causes linking to be done against a static version of
           the libgcj runtime library.  This option is only available if
           corresponding linker support exists.

           Caution: Static linking of libgcj may cause essential parts of
           libgcj to be omitted.  Some parts of libgcj use reflection to load
           classes at runtime.  Since the linker does not see these references
           at link time, it can omit the referred to classes.  The result is
           usually (but not always) a "ClassNotFoundException" being thrown at
           runtime. Caution must be used when using this option.  For more
           details see:
           <http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Statically%20linking%20libgcj>

   Code Generation
       In addition to the many gcc options controlling code generation, gcj
       has several options specific to itself.

       -C  This option is used to tell gcj to generate bytecode (.class files)
           rather than object code.

       --resource resource-name
           This option is used to tell gcj to compile the contents of a given
           file to object code so it may be accessed at runtime with the core
           protocol handler as core:/resource-name.  Note that resource-name
           is the name of the resource as found at runtime; for instance, it
           could be used in a call to "ResourceBundle.getBundle".  The actual
           file name to be compiled this way must be specified separately.

       -ftarget=VERSION
           This can be used with -C to choose the version of bytecode emitted
           by gcj.  The default is 1.5.  When not generating bytecode, this
           option has no effect.

       -d directory
           When used with "-C", this causes all generated .class files to be
           put in the appropriate subdirectory of directory.  By default they
           will be put in subdirectories of the current working directory.

       -fno-bounds-check
           By default, gcj generates code which checks the bounds of all array
           indexing operations.  With this option, these checks are omitted,
           which can improve performance for code that uses arrays
           extensively.  Note that this can result in unpredictable behavior
           if the code in question actually does violate array bounds
           constraints.  It is safe to use this option if you are sure that
           your code will never throw an "ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException".

       -fno-store-check
           Don't generate array store checks.  When storing objects into
           arrays, a runtime check is normally generated in order to ensure
           that the object is assignment compatible with the component type of
           the array (which may not be known at compile-time).  With this
           option, these checks are omitted.  This can improve performance for
           code which stores objects into arrays frequently.  It is safe to
           use this option if you are sure your code will never throw an
           "ArrayStoreException".

       -fjni
           With gcj there are two options for writing native methods: CNI and
           JNI.  By default gcj assumes you are using CNI.  If you are
           compiling a class with native methods, and these methods are
           implemented using JNI, then you must use "-fjni".  This option
           causes gcj to generate stubs which will invoke the underlying JNI
           methods.

       -fno-assert
           Don't recognize the "assert" keyword.  This is for compatibility
           with older versions of the language specification.

       -fno-optimize-static-class-initialization
           When the optimization level is greater or equal to "-O2", gcj will
           try to optimize the way calls into the runtime are made to
           initialize static classes upon their first use (this optimization
           isn't carried out if "-C" was specified.) When compiling to native
           code, "-fno-optimize-static-class-initialization" will turn this
           optimization off, regardless of the optimization level in use.

       --disable-assertions[=class-or-package]
           Don't include code for checking assertions in the compiled code.
           If "=class-or-package" is missing disables assertion code
           generation for all classes, unless overridden by a more specific
           "--enable-assertions" flag.  If class-or-package is a class name,
           only disables generating assertion checks within the named class or
           its inner classes.  If class-or-package is a package name, disables
           generating assertion checks within the named package or a
           subpackage.

           By default, assertions are enabled when generating class files or
           when not optimizing, and disabled when generating optimized
           binaries.

       --enable-assertions[=class-or-package]
           Generates code to check assertions.  The option is perhaps
           misnamed, as you still need to turn on assertion checking at run-
           time, and we don't support any easy way to do that.  So this flag
           isn't very useful yet, except to partially override
           "--disable-assertions".

       -findirect-dispatch
           gcj has a special binary compatibility ABI, which is enabled by the
           "-findirect-dispatch" option.  In this mode, the code generated by
           gcj honors the binary compatibility guarantees in the Java Language
           Specification, and the resulting object files do not need to be
           directly linked against their dependencies.  Instead, all
           dependencies are looked up at runtime.  This allows free mixing of
           interpreted and compiled code.

           Note that, at present, "-findirect-dispatch" can only be used when
           compiling .class files.  It will not work when compiling from
           source.  CNI also does not yet work with the binary compatibility
           ABI.  These restrictions will be lifted in some future release.

           However, if you compile CNI code with the standard ABI, you can
           call it from code built with the binary compatibility ABI.

       -fbootstrap-classes
           This option can be use to tell "libgcj" that the compiled classes
           should be loaded by the bootstrap loader, not the system class
           loader.  By default, if you compile a class and link it into an
           executable, it will be treated as if it was loaded using the system
           class loader.  This is convenient, as it means that things like
           "Class.forName()" will search CLASSPATH to find the desired class.

       -freduced-reflection
           This option causes the code generated by gcj to contain a reduced
           amount of the class meta-data used to support runtime reflection.
           The cost of this savings is the loss of the ability to use certain
           reflection capabilities of the standard Java runtime environment.
           When set all meta-data except for that which is needed to obtain
           correct runtime semantics is eliminated.

           For code that does not use reflection (i.e. serialization, RMI,
           CORBA or call methods in the "java.lang.reflect" package),
           "-freduced-reflection" will result in proper operation with a
           savings in executable code size.

           JNI ("-fjni") and the binary compatibility ABI
           ("-findirect-dispatch") do not work properly without full
           reflection meta-data.  Because of this, it is an error to use these
           options with "-freduced-reflection".

           Caution: If there is no reflection meta-data, code that uses a
           "SecurityManager" may not work properly.  Also calling
           "Class.forName()" may fail if the calling method has no reflection
           meta-data.

   Configure-time Options
       Some gcj code generations options affect the resulting ABI, and so can
       only be meaningfully given when "libgcj", the runtime package, is
       configured.  "libgcj" puts the appropriate options from this group into
       a spec file which is read by gcj.  These options are listed here for
       completeness; if you are using "libgcj" then you won't want to touch
       these options.

       -fuse-boehm-gc
           This enables the use of the Boehm GC bitmap marking code.  In
           particular this causes gcj to put an object marking descriptor into
           each vtable.

       -fhash-synchronization
           By default, synchronization data (the data used for "synchronize",
           "wait", and "notify") is pointed to by a word in each object.  With
           this option gcj assumes that this information is stored in a hash
           table and not in the object itself.

       -fuse-divide-subroutine
           On some systems, a library routine is called to perform integer
           division.  This is required to get exception handling correct when
           dividing by zero.

       -fcheck-references
           On some systems it's necessary to insert inline checks whenever
           accessing an object via a reference.  On other systems you won't
           need this because null pointer accesses are caught automatically by
           the processor.

       -fuse-atomic-builtins
           On some systems, gcc can generate code for built-in atomic
           operations.  Use this option to force gcj to use these builtins
           when compiling Java code.  Where this capability is present it
           should be automatically detected, so you won't usually need to use
           this option.

SEE ALSO

       gcc(1), gcjh(1), gjnih(1), gij(1), jcf-dump(1), gfdl(7), and the Info
       entries for gcj and gcc.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free
       Software Foundation, Inc.

       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
       under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
       any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
       Invariant Sections, the Front-Cover Texts being (a) (see below), and
       with the Back-Cover Texts being (b) (see below).  A copy of the license
       is included in the man page gfdl(7).

       (a) The FSF's Front-Cover Text is:

            A GNU Manual

       (b) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is:

            You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU
            software.  Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise
            funds for GNU development.