On 04/01/12 23:10, John Calcote wrote:
Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance here, but I find it difficult to understand
why any source file should ever be compiled without -fPIC. Are we really
worried about a few bytes of storage or memory in this day and age? This
flag has been the crux of all logistical problems I've ever dealt with when
building linux objects.
For example, there are times when I need to build objects that will be
linked statically into a program AND statically into a shared library. Do I
build two static libraries: one called libutil_static.a and libutil.a? That
seems silly and wasteful. Rather, I've found it simpler in this case to just
build all these "util" source files with -fPIC and archive them all into one
libutil.a that can be linked both into my programs and into my shared
libraries.
If anyone has any input, I'd love to hear good reasons for not just
disregarding non-pic code these days.
Always building objects with PIC flags is a fine choice too if that's
the way you want to go. I have experienced embedded environments where
the difference in code size and performance of unnecessary PIC code was
an issue, but that is a very specific scenario and not relevant to 99.9%
of the cases where these choices are made.
I personally just like to solve problems in a way that feels the "most
correct". Somehow letting little things slide gives me a sense that an
inevitable creep towards poor quality will result. It's why I always
build correct functional dependency rules in my makefiles, why I don't
ever use recursive make, and why I care about compiler warnings that
wouldn't otherwise stop the compilation unless I pass a -Werr flag
(which I always do). It gives me a sense of completeness to know that
only the code that needs to be PIC in my program or libraries is PIC.
But as far as I know, this factor aside, and excepting also those very
rare cases where the size or performance penalties of PIC matter, there
is no reason otherwise to not always compile everything PIC, in which
case making a Makefile, either manually written or generated using GNU
autoconf, is an easier task.
Bryan
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