HOWTO build old versions of ns-3 on newer compilers

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ns-3 builds with the following flags by default: "-Wall -Werror". This causes build warnings to trigger an error and stop the build.

This causes problems when trying to build older versions of ns-3 on newer systems with newer compilers, since over time, gcc gets more strict.

To disable errors from breaking your build, do the following:

 CXXFLAGS="-Wall" ./waf configure
 ./waf -vv

Now you will observe that all files are built with -Wall and not -Werror; e.g.

 14:16:16 runner system command -> ['/bin/g++', '-Wall', '-fPIC', '-DPIC', '-Idebug', '-I..', '-DNS3_ASSERT_ENABLE', 
 '-DNS3_LOG_ENABLE', '-DNETWORK_SIMULATION_CRADLE', '-DNS3_MODULE_COMPILATION', '../src/common/spectrum-model.cc', 
 '-c', '-o', 'debug/src/common/spectrum-model_1.o']

You may run into other issues (such as missing header files) in trying to build on newer platforms. e.g.

 14:16:16 runner system command -> ['/bin/g++', '-Wall', '-fPIC', '-DPIC', '-Idebug', '-I..', '-DNS3_ASSERT_ENABLE', 
 '-DNS3_LOG_ENABLE', '-DNETWORK_SIMULATION_CRADLE', '-DNS3_MODULE_COMPILATION', '../src/common/spectrum-model.cc', '-c', 
 '-o', 'debug/src/common/spectrum-model_1.o']
 In file included from ../src/common/spectrum-model.cc:22:0:
 debug/ns3/spectrum-model.h:91:3: error: ‘size_t’ does not name a type

This particular error is due to a change in C++ STL; the STL headers no longer incorporate c-style headers, so one must include <cstddef> explicitly.

This page describes other tricks to configure how waf builds things. Pass these flags at 'waf configure' time.

specific tips

If there is a specific tip for getting past one of these types of issues, please enter it below: