Re: Bug in linker for Win32.

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Eric,

>        I have been poking at the ld/bfd sources to try and figure
>    out what the fault is, and have traced it to the function
>    gld_i386pe_after_open(), in ei386pe.c (which is a generated
>    source file).  Essentially there is extra magic that takes place
>    for Microsoft import libraries to make sure that the .idata$[2,3,4]
>    sections are properly sorted, and the presence of the .obj
>    files causes this section of code to decide that the library
>    isn't a Microsoft import library, and hence the hack isn't
>    required.
>
>        For my testcase, the enclosed patch does work, but I haven't
>    tested much beyond this however.  The patch is a bit on the ugly
>    side - it is on the conservative side I suppose in that I am not
>    sure what harm there would be in mistakenly concluding that we
>    have a Microsoft import library.

The patch does not look too bad.  if you can tidy up the formatting
and resubmit it I will approve it.


>       In fact, there is a harmless nit whereby the object files
>    that are included appear as foo.obj.b in the linker map.  Doesn't
>    hurt anything, but I suppose I ought to fix it before any patch
>    is official.

That would be good, although I would not consider it to be a priority.

Cheers
        Nick