CC, CFLAGS, and -m32 [was Re: Pretest compilation problem]

[Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>]

Andreas Schwab wrote:

> You really should put -m32 into CC, since it is a different compiler.

I've seen this advertized elsewhere, and it's off-topic for Emacs, but
can you explain this to me?

Eg `info make' says:

`CC'
     Program for compiling C programs; default `cc'.  

"gcc -m32" is not a program. It is a program plus some switches.
I believe you if you say that switch causes an entirely different compiler
to be invoked behind the scenes, but I don't buy that as a justification
for why -m32 should go there and not in CFLAGS.

It just seems like an excuse to get round the fact that some Makefiles
don't pass CFLAGS during the linking stage...

`info make' also says:

`CFLAGS'
     Extra flags to give to the C compiler.

Not "flags passed to the compiler if it is being invoked as a compiler,
not a linker". Just "flags passed to the C compiler", full-stop.