Re: Unhelpful behaviour on Cygwin when "file" isn't installed

[Charles Wilson]

Olly Betts wrote:
> Does the cygwin packaging chooser have the concept of dependencies?

Yes.

> I've only used it briefly once some time ago, and I can't remember
> much about it.  But if it does, then libtool should really depend on
> file.

The official libtool package for cygwin (e.g. the one you get if you 
select 'libtool' in the cygwin installer) DOES in fact depend on 'file'. 
 That package is called "libtool1.5-1.5.20-2" (hard to miss, because 
there is no other libtool in the official distro).

However, you mentioned that your user was using "libtool-1.5.22". 
Therefore, I conclude that your user did not use the cygwin setup.exe 
program to install libtool -- he apparently installed some third-party 
version of libtool (yours?) or built his own.  I have no idea how any 
third-party provider handles their dependencies nor can I worry if some 
end-user compiled libtool and expected it to work, but didn't bother to 
run libtool's own testsuite to make sure ('cause libtool-sans-'file' 
would bomb the tests, bigtime).

I can only control the libtool that *I* distribute as part of the 
official cygwin system.  *It* is already marked as requiring 'file', and 
a normal cygwin installation of official cygwin-provided tools (incl. 
libtool1.5-1.5.20-2) using the cygwin setup.exe program WOULD have 
automatically included 'file'.

--
Chuck
cygwin/libtool maintainer