Why is g++ linked to clang, not clang++, by the mac developer tools? - c++

Question

I was just trying to explain to someone the difference between compiled and interpreted code, when I was greeted with a
main.cpp:1:10: fatal error: 'iostream' file not found
when calling g++ main.cpp for a simple hello world c++ file.
I looked into this a bit and found ...
JM:Desktop user$ which g++
/usr/local/bin/g++
JM:Desktop user$ ls -al /usr/local/bin/g++
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user admin 47 4 Dez 2018 /usr/local/bin/g++ -> /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/c++
JM:Desktop user$ ls -al /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/c++
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 5 3 Feb 20:29 /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/c++ -> clang
...that g++ is linked to clang and not clang++ and I therefore call the C-compiler.
I just deleted the Developer tools and installed them again - same thing.
Is this normal or did something mess up my system? Does it make any sense? What am I missing?
Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

It may actually be Homebrew's fault somehow...
JM:Desktop user$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin
/usr/local/bin is added by Homebrew.
'C++' for example links correctly to clang++ but it is in /usr/bin:
JM:Desktop user$ which c++
/usr/bin/c++
...and so is /usr/bin/g++.
I solved it by just deleting /user/local/bin/g++. The links are still strange.