Re: GCC multi-version development layout

On Sun, Apr 19, 2026 at 10:53:26PM +0000, Heime via Gcc-help wrote:
> Starting example table shows 
> 
> 5.0.0	(experimental) 	during active development of GCC 5 (stage 1 to 3)
> 5.0.1	(experimental) 	during the stabilization period of GCC 5 (stage 4)
> 5.0.1	(prerelease)

Yup.  During development of a release it identifies itself as
"experimental", and when things are getting ready the patchlevel is
changed from 0 to 1.  And the with a release candidate the dev-phase
text is changed to "prerelease" (well, slightly earlier even: when the
release branch is cut.  Typically about the same time, but Things Can
Happen).

> So stage changes and pre-releases do not show obvious numeric changes
> to GCC-N-Y-Z.

I have no idea what you try to say here

> Version Numbering Scheme that reflects what one sees in GCC-N-Y-Z.  Major
> version now consists of incrementing X, not incrementing Y (as with GCC 4.9
> and previous).

No.  With 4.9 the major version was 4 (the minor version was 9).
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Common-Predefined-Macros.html

Since GCC 5, we don't do minor numbers anymore, not for the same thing.

Normal users nowadays should only have to care about the major version
(unless e.g. we fixed some nasty bug in some later release on the branch
and the user wants to check if the version (s)he is using still is
affected, that kind of thing).


Segher