Re: [Mingw-msys] Re: MinGW libtool DLL failure

[Max Bowsher]

Earnie Boyd wrote:
> Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Oct 2002, Max Bowsher wrote:
>>
>>> I floated an idea on how to get around that: Adjust the libtool
>>> invocation command (as determined in libtool.m4) to be "libtool
>>> --bindir=$(bindir)" (or perhaps with appropriate quoting). The idea
>>> being that when used from an autoconf-based makefile (is it even
>>> possible to do otherwise, now there is no ltconfig?), the make
>>> variable bindir is passed on to libtool. Kludgy, yes, but better
>>> than ../bin. Of course, libtool would need to detect an invalid
>>> bindir and fall back on ../bin. I haven't fully worked this through
>>> yet, though, as I've just started university, so am a bit busy, and
>>> to top it off, my hard drive is making loud clicking noises and
>>> bluescreening my laptop from time to time.
>>
>>
>> Be very careful about your assumptions!  Libtool is certainly usable
>> all by itself and may be used to install packages into a different
>> directory from the one it is installed in.  Libtool only needs
>> autoconf in order to be installed, and is delivered from the FSF as a
>> configurable stand-alone package.  In a perfect world, every system
>> would come with a perfectly working libtool, and packages wouldn't
>> need to worry about including it, or configuring it.
>>
>
> So what!  The FSF standard is to use $(bindir) for binary
>   installation. It even states this in the make documentation.

So we use bindir, and arrange to fall back to "../bin"

>> The idea of supporting a --bindir option is tempting, but then
>> 'libtool --mode=install' stops looking like a simple install program,
>> and in fact, the --bindir option would need to be passed for several
>> different phases of libtool operation since it would influence the
>> content of the library.la file.  Since Windows may be the only OS
>> benefiting from this, we could have a case of the tail wagging the
>> dog.

So we conditionalize all this so it only activates on Windows.

> Would bindir be an environment variable if libtool is being executed
> from make?

Unfortunately not.

>  If not, setting a variable in the libtool.m4 that
> configure sets works.

Unfortunately not - "make install bindir=/alternatelocation".

>  I prefer that over a switch, with a default
> value for the variable of ../bin.

I think that a switch is the only way, if we are to deal with the case I
cite above.

Max.