I would like to install the latest release of the gcc compiler and use it with ViewKit. (Or alternatively: I would like to switch from the gcc compiler on Solaris to the Sun Forte compiler.) Is this going to cause any problem with BX or its libraries?

ViewKit is a C++ library and because of the implementation of the C++ language, is dependent on the specific version of the C++ compiler you are using. If you use libraries built with one C++ compiler, and you try to link those C++ libraries with code or libraries generated with another compiler, you will get link errors at best, and in the worst case, puzzling runtime errors. In some cases, even "minor" releases in the C++ compiler can create incompatibilities (e.g., gcc 2.95 and gcc 2.96 are NOT compatible!) ICS provides ViewKit for a wide variety of C++ compiler releases. So when you install, make sure that you pick the one that matches the particular release of your C++ compiler!

The compiler released use to build ViewKit is encoded in the name of a file that starts out with vkcompiler.{compiler version}. For example if you installed ViewKit for Solaris and the Sun Cxx 4.2 compiler on your system, then you would see in the install directory (typically /opt/bxpro-6.0/lib) the files:

vkplatform.sparc-solaris-2
vkcompiler.suncxx4.2

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