Re: libtool fails with uninstalled frameworks and the -F flag

[Michael C. Grant]

Gary,

Sorry for the delay. I think I'm going to have to give up on this one. I'm 
afraid my understanding of libtool internals as well as Darwin -framework 
idiosyncracies are insufficient to the task.

Fortunately, the issue we were having with Octave compilation has been resolved 
by other means (actually by forcing link-all-dependencies in libtool whenever 
an uninstalled framework is encountered).

Feel free to close this for now. If I get ambitious and figure things out more 
fully I will take another crack at it.

On Jan 13, 2014, at 8:50 PM, Gary V. Vaughan <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi Michael,
> 
> [moved to libtool-patches list]
> 
> On Jan 14, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Michael C. Grant <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> I'm trying to compile GNU Octave and its new Qt GUI on a Mac OSX with 
>> Homebrew. Homebrew installs the Qt frameworks in 
>> /usr/local/Cellar/qt/4.8.5/lib, so after some fiddling with the configure 
>> script I get this:
>> 
>> QT_LDFLAGS=-F/usr/local/Cellar/qt/4.8.5/lib
>> QT_LIBS=-framework QtCore -framework QtGui -framework QtNetwork
>> 
>> However, the libtool script does not handle the -F argument through 
>> properly, so it is stripped out of the linking process.
>> 
>> I created the following patch for the generated libtool script, which causes 
>> libtool to treat -F exactly like it treats -L. This seems to do the trick.
>> 
>> I did notice that scanning through past discussions that this has come up a 
>> couple of times, but there is reluctance to provide full support for -F for 
>> some reason. Perhaps the relative simplicity of this patch would convince 
>> you to reconsider. I'm also discussing this with the Homebrew folks to see 
>> if they would consider including in their formula, but they do prefer not to 
>> use patches if they can help it.
> 
> Thanks for the patch.  Sorry I didn't reply to your earlier emails - I marked 
> them for further attention, but didn't make the time to actually go back and 
> respond.
> 
> My main worry is whether that changing libtool's treatment of -F is going to 
> do something unexpected on another platform.  That said, apart from your 
> conflating of -L and -F in the case branches with the patch you sent, I'm 
> open to including it in the upcoming release if you don't mind reworking it a 
> little?
> 
> Please keep the -L and -F branches separate, factoring the branch bodies into 
> a shell function if necessary to prevent cut-n-pasting blocks of code between 
> the two.  Bonus points if you could also make -F behave as before on all 
> platforms but *-darwin*.
> 
> If you have github, I keep a mirror of libtool at 
> http://github.com/gvvaughan/GNU-libtool, so that might be a more convenient 
> way for you to submit a pull request than dropping patch attachments into the 
> mailing list.
> 
> I have a couple of small fixes of my own that I need to polish and push, and 
> then I'll do another round of platform testing to nail down what else is a 
> show-stopper for a final pre-release.
> 
> Cheers,
> -- 
> Gary V. Vaughan (gary AT gnu DOT org)