[OT] Strings embedded by gcc in executables?

[Simon 'corecode' Schubert]

On 06.12.2005, at 22:55, walt wrote:
$strings -a firefox-bin | grep GCC
GCC: (GNU) 3.3.6 (Gentoo 3.3.6, ssp-3.3.6-1.0, pie-8.7.8)
[many identical lines snipped]
My question is:  under what conditions would two different
such compiler version-strings appear in *one* executable file?
I think if one of the objects linked was compiled by a different 
compiler

like
% touch foo.c
% echo "int main;" > bar.c
% env CCVER=gcc40 cc -c foo.c
% cc bar.c foo.o
% strings -a a.out|grep GCC
GCC: (GNU) 3.4.5 20050809 (prerelease)
GCC: (GNU) 3.4.5 20050809 (prerelease)
GCC: (GNU) 3.4.5 20050809 (prerelease)
GCC: (GNU) 4.0.1
GCC: (GNU) 3.4.5 20050809 (prerelease)

The obvious corollary is:  why does gcc leave such version-
stamps in a file in the first place?
so you know which which compiler it was built?  ads?  data retention?  
spray tags? dunno really.

cheers
  simon
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