Re: HEAD libltdl/libltdlc ....

[Charles Wilson]

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > +         case "$host_os:$LTCC" in
> > +         interix*:*wgcc* | winnt*:*wgcc*)
> > +               use_wgcc=yes;;
> > +         *)
> > +               use_wgcc=no ;;

What is host_os=winnt*? how is this detected, and what are the criteria 
(e.g. I wouldn't want cygwin or mingw wrongly identified as winnt, even 
tho both run on the WindowsNT/2k/XP/[Vista?] platforms)


> > +/* windows / wgcc definitions of shared library import
> > + * wgcc has some benefits over the cygwin/mingw dll handling:
>
> You need to learn not to put down other people's hard work (Cygwin) in
> your own, when supplying patches to an independent work (Libtool).
> Except for a preference for GNU, Libtool should be neutral in language.

Meh, I'm not offended, because it's true there are some awkward issues 
with cygwin/mingw and DLLs.  However, criticism should be *accurate*. In 
cygwin/mingw you need specify neither dllexport NOR dllimport, because 
we have autoimport AND autoexport[*].  ( this has its own drawbacks and 
limitations, tho. See http://www.haible.de/bruno/woe32dll.html [*] also, 
using a .def file or any declspec(dllexport) turns off autoexport, which 
is usually The Right Thing To Do, but sometimes causes awkward and hard 
to track build errors...)


Plus, what if the cygwin/mingw platforms fixed these issues?  Then we'd 
have to go around correcting these sorts of comments, in areas of 
libtool that are actually part of the wgcc port and unrelated to 
cygwin/mingw!  That's not nice.  So: don't comment on other 
platforms/implementations *within the code*.  That stuff belongs on the 
mailing list...where "why don't the cygwin/mingw libtools do it in the 
same nifty way that the wgcc libtool does" might actually lead to some 
fruitful cross-pollination...

> > + * one needs to specify dllimport only, not dllexport since the
> > + * compiler exports automatically. Additionally one can pass
> > + * dllimport *allways*, except when building the sources them-
> > + * selfes. The compiler generates code to support dllimport in
> > + * static libraries.

like this ^^^^.  It appears to me that wgcc (and NOT cl.exe?) implements 
some form of Bruno Haible's ideas from

http://www.haible.de/bruno/woe32dll.html
and
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool/2006-09/msg00000.html

That's pretty cool...but Bruno suggested that the relevant support be 
implemented in libtool itself, not (as you appear to have done) in a 
wrapper around the compiler.

Now, maybe I'm totally off-base (see the word "appears" above, twice). 
But if not, then it would be helpful to cygwin/mingw if the 
"Bruno-support" were implemented somehow within libtool for use by wgcc. 
 Then, cygwin/mingw might be able to leverage it too, rather than that 
functionality be buried somewhere within wgcc.  Is that a possibility?

--
Chuck