Re: TODO

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Jacob Meuser wrote on Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:07:20AM CET:
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 11:00:34PM +0000, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 11:15 -0800, Jacob Meuser wrote:
> > > On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 03:02:55PM +0000, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> > > > Actually, I'd say the opposite is true ... the LONGER link line,
> > > > produced by the current Libtool, is what allows people to get away with
> > > > this because Libtool puts more stuff into the link line.
> > > > 
> > > > A shorter, more concise, link line actually forces people to make sure
> > > > they *do* link anything they require themselves, rather than relying on
> > > > Libtool to do the right thing for them.
> > > 
> > > but where does the problem show up?  on !Linux, because Linux will
> > > "do the right thing".
> > > 
> > No, on Linux ... because Linux does the right thing and causes the
> > applications to break; whereas Libtool does the wrong thing and links
> > the application directly with half the libraries on the system.
> 
> from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong,

Can you also be bothered to read
address@hidden again?
For archive users, that is message
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool/2004-11/msg00319.html

> on Linux, to the linker, all library deplibs do not need to be
> specified

ACK.

> on other systems, to the linker, all library deplibs do need to be
> specified.

On some other systems.

> libtool is to handle this transparently, just specify the library,
> and, if needed, libtool will add the deplibs.

That's what libtool does for every system right now, not only if needed.
Scotts keybuk-linux-deplibs.patch would change this behavior on linux.

> am I right so far?

I think so.

> so when libtool fails to complete the deplibs (I still haven't seen
> any explanation for what happens when one of the deplibs is a
> non-libtool library), where is there breakage?  not on Linux, because
> it doesn't need the deplibs anyway.

No breakage.  Developer education:  "There exist other systems with
linkers that need dependencies explicitly specified."

This education method is not foolproof, however, thus the proposed
change.

> how would linux cause the application to break if there was a deplib
> explicitly specified?

Read the message above.

Regards,
Ralf