Re: libtool wants to install LIBRARY.lai, but it doesn't exist

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Marc Singer wrote on Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 10:10:15AM CEST:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 08:29:23AM +0200, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> > Hi Marc,
> > 
> > * Marc Singer wrote on Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 12:38:53AM CEST:
> > > In the ltmain.m4 script, there is this code
> > 
> > You mean ltmain.sh, right?
> 
> It gets moved to .m4, yeah.  That's the one.

Almost right.  :)
branch-1-5: ltmain.in -> ltmain.sh -> libtool
branch-2-0/HEAD: config/ltmain.m4sh -> config/ltmain.sh -> libtool.

> > It'd be nice to know
> > - the exact libtool version used
> 
> 1.5.6

Please update to at least 1.5.14.

> > - a small test case to reproduce the behavior (esp. Makefile.am snippet)
> > - which of the details above trigger the behavior
> >   (does the fact that you are cross-compiling do this?)
> > - a `--debug' output of the `--mode=link' step of the library
> > - `$(TOP)/scripts/config.guess`
> > - contents of autogen.sh if that does fancy stuff other than a
> >   autoreconf.
> 
> It turns out that the problem is kinda subtle.
> 
> > I need to remark that cross-compile support in Libtool is suboptimal
> > ATM.  We want to change that, but it will take quite a bit of work.
> 
> I've noticed.  :-)
> 
> What's happening is that I'm building on a machine that has some of
> the target libraries already built.  In some cases, the build of a
> library will put the /usr/lib version in the .la file of the
> cross-built package.  I've not spent much time figuring out the exact
> circumstances that make that happen.

This description is, umm, well, a description.  Not precise enough to do
anything.

> By making sure that all of the .la files are proper, I've eliminated
> the error.  Part of the trouble is that I want to build with the
> prefix as /usr so that the packages can install correctly.  As yet,
> this may be something I have to relinquish.  It's kindofa nuisance
> because libtool/autotools pass an -rpath $(libdir) for the linking
> phase which means that the local system's libraries are always
> available.

We should look into using some DESTDIR-like information at link time to
override this.  Noone has volunteered for auditing libtool for this yet,
the patches I've seen so far have done only patchwork.

> The one thing that would help straight away would be a way to get the
> autotools to put 'set -x' in libtool.  I've been doing it by hand.
> It's been the only effect method of debugging.

Use --debug.  Set
  LIBTOOLFLAGS=--debug
when using a recent Automake.  Note that branch-2-0/HEAD Libtool have
slightly better `set -x' support for ksh's.

> To be plain, the autotools are a significant challenge to debug.

Yes, acknowledged.  Libtool solves a number of quite intricate problems,
though.

Regards,
Ralf