RE: Using libtool 2.0 in autoconf tests

[Peter Ekberg]

Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
>> * Sander Niemeijer wrote on Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 01:54:12PM CET:
>>> 
>>> I have some self written autoconf tests that check for linking
>>> shared libraries against some specific other libraries (these other
>>> libraries should be available as shared libraries or we might have
>>> a PIC problem. That is what my tests checks for). For this I had to
>>> create a variant 
>> 
>> *snip*
>> 
>> I agree with your view of things.  I think we should allow this to
>> be done. 
>> 
>> Gary, you did the whole bootstrap reorganization.  Is anything close
>> to this possible?
> 
> The theory:
> 
> It is my belief that an actual link should not be necessary to test
> for some characteristic. 

*snip* as the rest assumed this is true.

It is indeed very useful to actually test if linking succeeds and
thereby check if a given lib contains a given symbol. What better
way to do the linking test than to use a tool that "hides the
complexity of using shared libraries behind a consistent, portable
interface"?

The mere existence of the AC_LINK_IFELSE macro (and AC_RUN_IFELSE
for that matter) suggests that I'm not alone in thinking it is
useful to link in configure scripts...

Cheers,
Peter