Re: Additional link flags for HP aCC and SGI CC

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Yesterday, 14 hours, 50 minutes, 58 seconds ago, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> Can you pass those flags through libtool using, for example, ``-Wc,-n32''
> or ``-Xlinker,-no_prelink''?
> 
> Actually, I see that these options are not very well documented... I'll
> commit a patch shortly.

Or maybe I just overlooked the manual since they actually _are_
documented.  ;-)

Anyway, I tried `-Xlinker -mt' (note: no comma) with aCC but since `-mt'
is not an actual linker flag, this does not correspond to what I'd like
to do (moreover HP-UX linker's `-m' option really has nothing to do with
`-mt': "This option produces a load map on the standard output").  Here
is what aCC's manual says about `-mt':

      -mt            Sets various -D flags to enable multi-threading.  Also
                     sets -lpthread.  For details see HP aC++ Online
                     Programmer's Guide.

Ok, I could just pass `-lpthread' manually and it may work well but I
have the feeling that `-mt' is pretty opaque and is supposed to be used
"as is" by the end user (the end user knows the semantics of `-mt' but
he is not supposed to be aware of its implementation details).

Same for `-AA': the linker doesn't have any such option so this is just
an aCC option that it recognizes at link time and converts in a
`-lCsup_v2' or `-lCsup' linker argument (just guessing since what it
actually does isn't documented and may be more complicated than that).

On IRIX, `-Xlinker -n32' and friends may work since these appear to be
common linker switches [1].  However, `-prelink', `-ptused' and friends
aren't ld options so I would expect the trick to fail (I cannot actually
test it right now).

IMO, C++ specific linker options ought to be treated specifically as
linking C++ code already requires to use the C++ compiler anyway.
Giving knowledge of `-32', `-mt' and other platform specific switches to
`ltmain.sh' would also make people's life easier I think.

BTW, I forgot to mention that the patch I posted yesterday applies to
`ltmain.sh' from Libtool 1.5.8.

Thanks,
Ludovic.

[1] 
http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?cmd=getdoc&coll=0650&db=man&fname=1%20ld