Re: -export-* usage when linking program

[Daniel Sands]

I've looked through that part of Libtool due to AIX issues and 
discovered that export-symbols and its counterpart are not used for 
linking programs at all.  Only for libraries.

I don't know if this is intended behavior, but it is the way libtool 
does things, even with 2.1

> Hi all,
>
> I'm running libtool 1.5.24 on linux (binutils 2.18) in link mode to 
> link C program with plugins. And I want to use -export-symbols to 
> export plugin API to plugins via standard linker without reinventing 
> dynamic linker (e.g. pass plugin some structure full of pointers to 
> functions).
>
> When I pass -export-dynamic to libtool, then all symbols are exported 
> from main binary and my plugin using that symbols can be loaded via 
> dlopen() and it works fine, but exporting all symbols is a bit ugly.
>
> When I pass -export-symbols or -export-symbols-regex to link main 
> binary - these options are _silently_ ignored, symbols are not 
> exported and plugin fails to load. :)
>
> I've tested my ld and found that it supports option --dynamic-list, 
> that can be used to implement -export-symbols.
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1.   is it right behavior or is it libtool bug?
> 1.a  silent ignorance of option
> 1.b  working -export-dynamic while linking program
> 1.c  not working -export-symbols while linking program
>
> 2.   what platforms support -export-symbols option?