Re: Running ranlib after installation - okay or not?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Peter,

* Peter O'Gorman wrote on Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 07:09:35AM CEST:
> Peter O'Gorman wrote:
> | The problem is that libtool tries to run ranlib after install and that
> | ranlib can fail if the library is not writable?

Thanks for the pointer.

> When I look more closely at this, I see in libtool.m4:
> old_postinstall_cmds='chmod 644 $oldlib'
> 
> and a little later:
> old_postinstall_cmds="\$RANLIB \$oldlib~$old_postinstall_cmds"
> 
> Should that be:
> old_postinstall_cmds="$old_postinstall_cmds~\$RANLIB \$oldlib"
> ??

Yes, I believe so (both CVS HEAD and branch-1-5).
Unless there exists ranlib's that change file mode..

> > The problem is that libtool tries to run ranlib after install and
> > that ranlib can fail if the library is not writable? Note that on
> > darwin running ranlib on a 444 lib works and changes permissions to
> > 644, remind me to file a bug.

Hmm.  The change to 644 should be OK.  What happens to libraries with
other modes (say, not group- or world-readable)?  So how about changing
the order as you suggest above, and filing a bug with darwin ranlib?

Someone in this thread suggested saving and restoring the mode used for
installation; in a way, it would be a nice service to serve the user's
wish here (for example, for supposed-to-be private code); one danger
would be if we then found issues similar to with shared libraries (where
on some systems, weird permissions are necessary for them to work
right).  Not that I know of any such issues.

> > Another alternative would be to set RANLIB=: before configure if
> > your system does not need to ranlib anything.

Improving upon this situation has been on our TODO list anyway:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool-patches/2005-05/msg00092.html

Cheers,
Ralf