Re: libtool 1.5 -static and installed libraries

[Howard Chu]

Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> Hi Howard, Alexandre, others,
>
> * Howard Chu wrote on Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 10:19:03PM CEST:
> > We just migrated from libtool-1.4.3 to 1.5.18 in the OpenLDAP CVS HEAD, 
> > and are seeing a new linking problem.
>
> You've migrated *already*?  :-)

This was actually our 2nd or 3rd attempt. Now that we've gotten off of 
autoconf 2.13.1 we may be able to move a little faster from now on. ;) 
(Hey, Cyrus SASL still ships with libtool 1.3.5.......)

> > So the question is, why does linking with -static cause libtool to 
> > behave like -all-static was used, why does it ignore the installed 
> > status of the libraries?
>
> (You also sent a patch to change this behavior to match the current,
> i.e., both branch-1-5 and CVS HEAD, documentation).
>
> Now while your patch looks ok at a glance, I'm unsure whether what is
> wanted by users is what the documentation says or what the current code
> does.  See for example this discussion between Akim and Alexandre about
> the issue:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool/2005-01/msg00350.html

Yes, I read through that discussion but it seemed to be a fairly special 
case. It didn't make any sense to me, really - requesting a static link, 
while requesting that no static libraries be built...

Something I didn't test properly yet is what happens if the executable 
needs to be relinked at install time. Since the just-built libraries 
will most likely be installed before the exe is relinked, it seems to me 
 it may foul up. (But my SuSE system didn't need relinking; will have 
to try again on a different platform to see.)

> Should we discuss this and decide about what's best?  Maybe we'd need
> another switch to link statically against all non-system libs (in the
> sense that libc is one, but libdb is not)?  Or would implementing per-
> deplib static/shared switches be the only solution?

That may work best, though it sounds tedious. A lot of linkers allow 
-static/-dynamic to be specified multiple times on a command line, 
toggling the choice until the next switch occurs in the options.

--
  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.  http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun        http://highlandsun.com/hyc
  OpenLDAP Core Team            http://www.openldap.org/project/