Re: pr-msvc-support: building .DLLs with symbols

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Peter,

* Peter Rosin wrote on Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:48:34AM CEST:
> Here's a couple of patches that implements support for -Wl, and
> -Xlinker for MSVC. The first one (rename-dashL_envvar-tolinker_envvar.patch)
> is just a rename, to reduce confusion,

In general, a rename from an ugly variable name like "dashL_envvar" is a
good thing.  However, it is also an API change that would normally need
announcing in NEWS and asking ourselves why we messed up before and had
to fix it.  Luckily, this one is in pr-msvc-support only, not in master,
so I don't have such a big problem with it.  However, if you do it then
please rename *all* instances of this ugliness (dashL_envvar_spec?).
With that, I think the first patch is probably a good thing.

> and the second patch
> (-Xlinker-msvc.patch) contains the new code...

And the @lt_linker@ thing is again so ugly it makes me cringe.
No, really, I don't want to see code like this in master, that will be
unmaintainable a year down the road.  Why are we not looking for -Wl,
and transforming that if linker_envvar is nonempty?  And why does the
description of linker_envvar not state that it also holds other link
flags (is that maybe *not* true for some other systems on which this
variable is used)?

Does the expanded form of $wl ever get into .la files BTW?  This would
certainly make them unusable for another compiler later on (this is not
something that is broken nor needs to be fixed with this patch, I'm just
noting it here because I see it and this is one of the few systems where
it makes a big difference.)

> Ok for the pr-msvc-support branch?

Well, to me that depends upon whether you want to rewrite this code for
an eventual inclusion in master anyway or not.

Thanks, and sorry if that was a bit harsh,
Ralf