Reducing dependency_libs to what was on the command line.

[Kurt Roeckx]

Hi,

As some of you might know, Debian has a patch to reduce the
number of libraries that libtool will link too.  And now I'd like
to reduce it even more.

What an other problem is that in case of convience libraries, it
also adds all the libraries in the dependency_libs to the
depends, and so links with all of those.  It should however only
link with those they tried to link the convience library with,
and not all it's dependency.

The best solution I can see for this is to only have the
libraries that were on the command line end up in the
dependency_libs on the .la file, atleast for convience libraries.

I've been experimenting a little with this, and it seems to be
giving very good results so far.

An other problem we've expierenced in the past is that in case we
remove some lib in the chain, all libraries that got (inderectly)
linked to it needed to be rebuild to remove the library from their
dependency_libs in their .la files.  Having all the libraries you
need to link to in the .la file is really not a good idea in my
opinion.  I think this should work recursivly, and find the other
libraries it should link to from the .la files it references.

So, I've tried what the effect is of having only things you link
to in the dependency_libs of the .la file.  And it already seems
to be working recursivly, so I have to wonder why they're all
there.  Are there any plans on changing that behaviour soon?

I've all been testing this with 1.5, and have no idea how HEAD or
something is doing this.

I've attached a patch that "works for me".  I'm not even sure
this is the proper way to do what I want, it just seems to have
the effect that I want.  I would welcome some comment on it.

Do you think this can break something?  Is there a better way to
solve those problems?


Kurt

dependency_libs.diff
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