Arduino 1.0.6: How to change compiler flag?

Question

I'm currently working on a project using Arduino 1.0.6 IDE and it does not seem to accept C++ 11 std::array. Is it possible to change the compiler flag to make this work?

Answer 1

Add custom compiler flags to platform.local.txt. Just create it in the same directory where platform.txt is. For example:

compiler.c.extra_flags=
compiler.c.elf.extra_flags=
compiler.S.extra_flags=
compiler.cpp.extra_flags=-mcall-prologues -fno-split-wide-types -finline-limit=3 -ffast-math
compiler.ar.extra_flags=
compiler.objcopy.eep.extra_flags=
compiler.elf2hex.extra_flags=

In this example C++ flags will make large sketch smaller. Of course, you can use your own flags instead. Since platform.local.txt does not overwrite standard files and is very short, it is very easy to experiment with compiler flags.

You can save platform.local.txt for each project in its directory. It will NOT have any effect in project's directory, but this way if you decide to work on your old project again you will be able to just copy it to the same directory where platform.txt is (typically ./hardware/arduino/avr/) and continue work on your project with project-specific compiler flags.

Obviously, using Makefile as ladislas suggests is more professional and more convenient if you have multiple projects and do not mind dealing with Makefile. But still, using platform.local.txt is better than messing with platform.txt directly and an easy way to play with compiler flags for people who are already familiar with Arduino IDE.