Re: static library

[Ludovic Courtès]

Vincent Legoll <address@hidden> skribis:

> I'm trying to package & use a static library (not mine), but it looks like
> the right "-L" parameter is not automagically passed to the user package
> (where the lib is in (inputs ...))
>
> something like the following:
>
> (define-public a (package ...))
> (define-public b (package ... (inputs `(("liba" ,a))) ...))
>
> I tried to put the right -L into make-flags & configure-flags myself, but
> it failed with error, I don't even know if I have to do that :
>
> (define-public b (package ...
>     (arguments
>       `(#:make-flags (list (string-append "LDFLAGS=-L" ,a "/lib -la"))
>         #:configure-flags (list (string-append "LDFLAGS=-L" ,a "/lib -la"))
                                                              ^^
Since packages do not use gexps (yet), you have to do the more
complicated thing here:

  (inputs `(("the-label-for-a" ,a)))
  (arguments
    '(#:make-flags (list (string-append "LDFLAGS=-L"
                         (assoc-ref %build-inputs "the-label-for-a")))))

> this ended with:
>
> ERROR: In procedure primitive-load:
> ERROR: In procedure scm_lreadr: /gnu/store/*-guile-builder:1:5211:
> Unknown # object: #\<
>
> which is in this :
>
> [...]
> #:phases %standard-phases #:locale "en_US.utf8" #:configure-flags
> (list (string-append "LDFLAGS=-L" #<package address@hidden
> /home/vince/guix-packages/fifth.scm:40 503c780> "/lib -lurlmatch"))
> [...]

And indeed, we see the package object was written as is in the build
script above.

> I did find a use of static lib (apart from libgcc) in utils-linux but
> nothing here seems special (even the *.a move looks optional)

In (guix build-system gnu), there’s a ‘static-package’ procedure that
turns a GNU build system package into a statically-linked package.  If
your use case falls in that category, it’s enough to do:

  (define the-static-package
    (static-package the-package))

HTH!

Ludo’.