New Features in Version A.03.60

Debugging of Optimized Code (DOC) in 64-Bit Mode

Now it is possible to debug code optimized at +O2 in 64-bit (wide) mode using HP aC++. Use the compilation option -g +O2 +DD64 to achieve this.

Earlier, DOC was available only in 32-bit (narrow) mode.

Enhancements to C++ Runtime Support Library

In C++, it is possible to make the compiler generate calls to pure virtual functions. When this happens inadvertently, it can be hard to locate the class to which the pure virtual function belongs. The HP aC++ runtime library has been enhanced to print the name of the containing class when a pure virtual function is called during execution.

Example:

struct base {
   base() { something(this); }
   friend void something(base *b){ b->bar(); }
   virtual void bar() = 0;
};
 
struct deri: public base{
   void bar(){}
   };
 
int main(){
   deri d;
}

When executing this program, the following message will be printed:

aCC runtime: pure virtual function called for class “base”.

Improved Performance of C++ Virtual Calls at +O4

Performance of virtual calls at +O4 has been improved for C++ applications. This is expected to provide performance benefits to user applications written in C++ which have lot of virtual calls.

Optimizer Tune-Up for PA8800

PA8800 supports a cache line size of 128, whereas PA8700 had a cache line size of 64. A new option +DA8800 is provided, to set the cache line size used by the compiler as 128. This also sets the architecture version equivalent to +DA2.0N.

Improved C++ Class Array Construction Performance

This version has improved performance of C++ class array construction. However, this results in an increase in the size of generated code. You can turn this feature off by setting aCC_ARRAY_OPT environment variable to OFF or 0.

Improved Compile Time

With this release, there is a significant reduction in compile time for applications involving static initializations of huge aggregates.

Improved C++ Template Usability

This version has significantly improved support for C++ template features, with more conformance to the ISO/IEC 14882 C++ Standard. Specifically, support for member templates, the use of typename and template keywords, parsing of templates and robustness of the templates have been improved.