Understanding target triples

We will start by presenting three important definitions as follows:

• Build is the platform where the cross-compiler is built
• Host designates the platform where the cross-compiler will run
• Target refers to the platform where executables or libraries generated by the cross-compiler run

In a standard cross-compiler, the build and host platforms are the same. You define the build, host, and target via target triples. These triples uniquely identify a target variation with information about the processor architecture, operating system flavor and version, C library kind, and object file type.

There is no strict format for triples. GNU tools, for instance, may accept triples composed of two, three, or even four fields in the <arch>-<sys/vendor>-<other>-<other> format, such as arm-linux-eabi, mips-linux-gnu, x86_64-linux-gnu, x86_64-apple-darwin11, and sparc-elf. Clang strives to maintain compatibility with GCC and thus recognizes this format, but...