C++ Standard Libraries

There are two C++ standard libraries supported by Apple compilers.

The default for 10.8 and earlier is libstdc++, supported by Apple GCC compilers, GNU GCC compilers, and clang. This was marked deprecated with a warning during compile as of Xcode 8.

The default for 10.9 is libc++, which is also the default for clang on older platforms when building C++11 code.

There are subtle incompatibilities between several of the C++ standard libraries, so Homebrew will refuse to install software if a dependency was built with an incompatible C++ library. It’s recommended that you install the dependency tree using a compatible compiler.

If you’ve upgraded to 10.9 from an earlier version - because the default C++ standard library is now libc++, you may not be able to build software using dependencies that you built on 10.8 or lower. If you’re reading this page because you were directed here by a build error, you can most likely fix the issue if you reinstall all the dependencies of the package you’re trying to build.

Example install using GCC 4.8: brew install DESIRED_FORMULA --cc=gcc-4.8. Get GCC 4.8 via: brew install gcc48

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