Is it valid to use newer toolchain for application build?

Question

Currently we build our application with same toolchain as the toolchain used for building root filesystem.

Is it valid to build application with a newer toolchain, or will it result in any mismatches when running on the target filesystem ?

EDIT:

I want to add sanitize checking for application. Unfortunately arm-linux-gnueabihf version 4.8 does not support it yet. So I want to build my application with the same linaro toolchain for same architecture, just more updated (version 6.4 instead of 4.8)

Root file system will consist of the dynamic libraries so if you compile your application using different tool-chain there may be a possibility of format mismatch and you may get an `exec: format error` when you try to execute the binary. — Gaurav Pathak, Feb 01 '18 at 09:38
Thanks, I've edited my question, I use same architecture just update from gcc 4.8 to gcc 6.4. — ransh, Feb 01 '18 at 09:41

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 08 '18 at 14:46

To make this work you require ABI compatibility between your old libraries and your recompiled application. The C ABI is much simpler as the C++ ABI. You won't have problems with the C parts.

For the C++ parts you might have to select the right ABI version via g++ -fabi-version.

For the C ABI, it is a matter of ABI compatibility between the libc versions used. glibc (which is the one used by the Linaro toolchain) is generally safe.

Is it valid to use newer toolchain for application build?

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