Libtool needs -input-file option

[Robert Boehne]

Hello!

I'm busy building a solid modeling library with Libtool and fixing it
up along the way.  I have found one last barrier, when the command that
libtool is invoked with is too large to be read, libtool can't
be executed.  In this case you are currently out of luck.  You'd have to
start concatenating source files or splitting up libraries to get
around this.
Libtool could support an option, say "-input-file filename" that would
take
a text file list of libtool *.lo files as an argument.  Automake could
easily output the file from a Make rule like this:

# input for libtool -link-file option
$(libtool-input-file): $(libTKSTEPStd_la_OBJECTS)
        list='$(libTKSTEPStd_la_OBJECTS)'; \
        rm -f $(libtool-input-file); \
        for i in $$list; do \
          echo $$i >> $(libtool-input-file); \
        done;

libTKSTEPStd.la: $(libtool-input-file) $(libTKSTEPStd_la_DEPENDENCIES)
        $(CXXLINK) --debug -rpath $(libdir) $(libTKSTEPStd_la_LDFLAGS)
-input-file $(libtool-input-file) $(libTKSTEPStd_la_LIBADD) $(LIBS)

I have hacked up a prototype libtool that does this,
but I need some help to make it work.
I'm expanding the list of lo file names while parsing the
command line arguments.  I need these *.lo files to get translated
into whatever the actual files are, what I was trying to do
was just get the filenames from the input file rather than
the command line.  Unfortunately I need to get them translated
into the real object file names, whatever they may be.
I don't think I can assign the objects to the argument list $0 $1 $2 etc
because that would exceed the same limit as the shell.(?)
I don't like that "solution" either because it seems kludgy to me.

I would also like to solicit suggestions for improvement, and
any issues that I may have forgotten.

Thanks,

Robert

-- 
Robert Boehne             Software Engineer
Ricardo Software   Chicago Technical Center
TEL: (630)789-0003 x. 238
FAX: (630)789-0127
email:  address@hidden