Hello Charles,
Charles S. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
CSW> Well, the problem with libtool is that it's a developer's tool. Take
CSW> the gettext package, for instance. It uses some version of libtool that
CSW> does not understand cygwin/dlls. The only way to 'fix' it is to replace
CSW> the libtool that is distributed WITH gettext, with a newer version.
Yep, it's all about doing 'libtoolize --force'. When that will
work (I mean, it will be possible to take some existing GNU/*nix
package, run libtoolize --force/aclocal/automake -a/autoconf and have
it compile cute little dll without any other changes), wouldn't it be
nice?
CSW> See, libtool isn't a tool that lives on the end-user's system. It's a
CSW> couple of scripts that are distributed with each package that uses
CSW> libtool. So, you've probably got 27 versions of libtool on your system
CSW> right now.
Yes - it is *developer* tool. But see what Gary Vaugham says:
"remember that libtool only want's you to see (and thus link against)
the libfoo.la file". That's nice, but on typical *nix system you can
build shared lib with libtool, but link against it without it. But
they want to deprive win32 users off such possibility! (Technical
note: what corresponds to shared library on *nix system is a pair of
<implib,dll> on win32. *Pair*)
CSW> Perhaps the current version of libtool groks cygwin dlls. (In the 'old'
CSW> dlltool way; I'm positive it doesn't use 'gcc -shared').
Yes. And know why? Because they want to support outdated betas!
Note - *beta* versions of systems, for which official release is
available for quite some time. Suppose libtool supported some NeXT
alpha or Solaris pre-release of early '90? Nor even it is standard
practise - I with regret read about dropping support of some systems
in gdb 5.0. My last argument would be as follows:
Suppose someone has cygwin b19 and libtool 1.2 and he wants to
build DLLs with it. But he can't - libtool 1.2 simply doesn't support
building DLLs! So, he's got to upgrade to libtool 1.3.x, but the same way,
he might upgrade cygwin to 1.1 also. So, rule is simple: want DLLs - use
release of cygwin and fresh libtool. Before that, there was some
support, but it was experimental and changes since. Don't want to
upgrade - enjoy static linking which is always available.
CSW> But none of the commonly-used libraries or applications out there USE the most
CSW> current libtool.
Libtool has quite stable usage interface and principles. Following
to them will allow to build shared libraries on *any* system with a
handful of sanity (win32 goes into this category). Matter is
implementing support for different systems.
CSW> --Chuck
--
Paul Sokolovsky, IT Specialist
http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=11135
