How to see which flags -march=native will activate?

I'm compiling my C++ app using GCC 4.3. Instead of manually selecting the optimization flags I'm using -march=native, which in theory should add all optimization flags applicable to the hardware I'm compiling on. But how can I check which flags is it actually using?

You can use the -Q --help=target options:

gcc -march=native -Q --help=target ...

The -v option may also be of use.

You can see the documentation on the --help option here.

To see command-line flags, use:

gcc -march=native -E -v - </dev/null 2>&1 | grep cc1

If you want to see the compiler/precompiler defines set by certain parameters, do this:

echo | gcc -dM -E - -march=native

It should be (-### is similar to -v):

echo | gcc -### -E - -march=native 

To show the "real" native flags for gcc.

You can make them appear more "clearly" with a command:

gcc -### -E - -march=native 2>&1 | sed -r '/cc1/!d;s/(")|(^.* - )//g'

and you can get rid of flags with -mno-* with:

gcc -### -E - -march=native 2>&1 | sed -r '/cc1/!d;s/(")|(^.* - )|( -mno-[^\ ]+)//g'

If you want to find out how to set-up a non-native cross compile, I found this useful:

On the target machine,

% gcc -march=native -Q --help=target | grep march
-march=                               core-avx-i

Then use this on the build machine:

% gcc -march=core-avx-i ...

I'm going to throw my two cents into this question and suggest a slightly more verbose extension of elias's answer. As of gcc 4.6, running of gcc -march=native -v -E - < /dev/null emits an increasing amount of spam in the form of superfluous -mno-* flags. The following will strip these:

gcc -march=native -v -E - < /dev/null 2>&1 | grep cc1 | perl -pe 's/ -mno-\S+//g; s/^.* - //g;'

However, I have only verified the correctness of this on two different CPUs (an Intel Core2 and AMD Phenom), so I suggest also running the following script to be sure that all of these -mno-* flags can be safely stripped.

2021 EDIT: There are indeed machines where -march=native uses a particular -march value, but must disable some implied ISAs (Instruction Set Architecture) with -mno-*.

#!/bin/bash

gcc_cmd="gcc"

# Optionally supply path to gcc as first argument
if (($#)); then
	gcc_cmd="$1"
fi

with_mno=$(
	"${gcc_cmd}" -march=native -mtune=native -v -E - < /dev/null 2>&1 |
	grep cc1 |
	perl -pe 's/^.* - //g;'
)
without_mno=$(echo "${with_mno}" | perl -pe 's/ -mno-\S+//g;')

"${gcc_cmd}" ${with_mno}    -dM -E - < /dev/null > /tmp/gcctest.a.$$
"${gcc_cmd}" ${without_mno} -dM -E - < /dev/null > /tmp/gcctest.b.$$

if diff -u /tmp/gcctest.{a,b}.$$; then
	echo "Safe to strip -mno-* options."
else
	echo
	echo "WARNING! Some -mno-* options are needed!"
	exit 1
fi

rm /tmp/gcctest.{a,b}.$$

I haven't found a difference between gcc -march=native -v -E - < /dev/null and gcc -march=native -### -E - < /dev/null other than some parameters being quoted -- and parameters that contain no special characters, so I'm not sure under what circumstances this makes any real difference.

Finally, note that --march=native was introduced in gcc 4.2, prior to which it is just an unrecognized argument.