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That wasn't just Apple. The reason that happened was because gcc went from 3 to 4 in that time frame. gcc and C++ never guaranteed binary compatibility, especially between major versions.

I had similar problems on Linux and Solaris because of that transition. My own fault (actually my employer's) for assuming binary compatibility when it was never promised.

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GCC transition from 3 to 4 didn't break the ABI. The last required ABI break was 3.0 to 3.1.

I'm not being pedantic. libstdc++ was mentioned. That always can break.

The ABI between g++ transitions is also platform and architecture dependent. Mac was PowerPC back then. Sun used Sparc. Not everything is always x86, even on Linux.

You are right, I had forgot that GCC broke the libstdc++ ABI between 3.3 and 3.4 (not 3.x to 4.x though). That was 12 years ago, though, the ABI has been stable ever since [1].

I still would characterize it a fairly stable ABI, not something that "can always break", especially compared with other vendors that break the library ABI every release.

[1] A new libstdc++ C++11 ABI was added in GCC 5.x but it is optional even in C++11 mode.

Indeed, but most Linux distros of the era did not force a new-ABI libstdc++ upgrade on you, breaking C++ compilation with a mandatory security update. Apple did. Therefore I bite my thumb at them.

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