Re: [Mingw-users] libtool, dlls and -lm

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Keith MARSHALL wrote on Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 06:17:57PM CET:
> Ralf Wildenhues wrote, quoting Bob Frieshahn:
> >
> > OK, so the only remaining case really is MSYS/MinGW itself.  Do we
> > know of win32 installations that provide a `file' command that does
> > not do what we expect?
> 
> While it is true that MSYS/MinGW doesn't include a `file' command as
> standard, it is perfectly feasible to use a `foreign' implementation
> with MSYS;  e.g. I have installed the GnuWin32 v4.16 implementation
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=23617&package_id=18878
> into my `/usr/local' MSYS tree.  Not sure how robust it is;  e.g. it
> misidentifies manpage sources as `MKS Spell hash (old format)', and
> its own manpage refers to incorrect locations for the `magic' files,
> but it does seem to identify executables, shell scripts, and `*.a'
> or `*.dll' libraries reasonably well.

Those are the important bits.  Thanks for mentioning this, I'll try
GnuWin32 for testing.

> Not suggesting that you should always expect `file' to be present, but
> some MSYS users may have it.  Maybe, if it's needed to improve libtool
> support, we could consider adding it to a future msysDTK release, or
> provide it as a mingwPORT.

Well, I've thought of rewriting func_win32_libid in a way that would
not require `file' at all, rather than asking you to add it.  Have
to think about this a bit more, when I have more time.

* Earnie Boyd wrote on Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 10:45:37PM CET:
> 
> Some fine user donated a shell script version of file and attached it
> to a bug report about this issue.  I was planning to put it in a next
> release.  It has been ages since a release has happened and at the
> moment it looks like it will be ages still.

While you're already considering adding tools to improve libtool
support, may I kindly point to
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=13069136 which
has not been addressed yet, as far as I can see.  It would help us
very much to convince to change the GCS, and it would enable a
complexity reduction (and thus quite some speedup, esp. on mingw in
some cases) for 'libtool --mode=link' with a large number of objects.

Cheers,
Ralf