Re: static lib containing backends

[Yannick Lecaillez]

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> Likely for the full solution you will need to wait for libtool-2.0 (or
>
> use the CVS version).
>  
Argh, its not really possible. My bootstrap script execute libtoolize
and then we're host dependent. And i wouldn't provide specific libtool
with our package ...

> > Other thing, is there a way to compile libltdl using Visual C compiler ? 
> >    
>
> Not yet.  You need the CVS version of Libtool plus the MSVC patch by
> Peter Ekberg:
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.general/6539
>
> which we have not merged yet because it needs more testing; this patch
> has seen lots of work on the libtool-patches mailing list.
>
>  
>
> > Someone reported to me that just failed. Its why we currently use our
> > own libloader stuff for win32 arch and made this arch a specific case
> > :-/
> >    
> Well, you can help with testing if you want.  Say so and I can probably
> enumerate what needs to be done.  (Not for the faint of heart though.)
>  
I liked to but, honestly, my project just use libtool. My project isn't
to "debug" libtool. Moreover i haven't got any Win32 at home :-)
But if one of these day i'm borring at job place, i'll install Visual C on
one of these computer and just test stuff. Btw, i don't really understand
why this "little" piece of code libltdl is simply don't compile on Visual ?
(perhaps because i never opened Visual ? :-))

> Hmm.  Do you want to be able to create the static version and a shared
> version at the same time?
>
> If not, it should be possible to do this (untested): if you want the
> static library, make convenience archives from all backends.  I must
> admit that I'm not certain that this
> - works at the moment, nor
> - can even be made to work portably.
> We could add a TODO item for this, to look into it, but it will likely
> take a little while.
>
> If you could do with multiple `*.a' archives but are just trying to get
> rid of the necessity of the `backend*.la' files: there is a pending
> patch to fix this by Pierre Ossman; it still needs to be validated and
> tested.
>  
The fact is tried lot of things and noone works nicely. Its why in our
project we just override libtool stuff : static lib are only build using
autotools and home made libloader.

As i understand, there isn't good solution at this time. Some exist but
require a not released version. Its a bit sad :-(.
Libtool rest a great piece of software and as for all good software, we
expect a lot of it perhaps too much (is there a TODO about allowing libtool
to make coffee ? ;-)). Its not perfect but i'm sure it will still allow some
portability to our project

Thanks a lot for your answer and your interest about this problem !
Since libtool is in our project, i'll waiting the day where i'll be able to
remove completly our home made stuff and use only libtool :-)

Again, thanks a lot.

Regards,
Yannick.