Re: removal of .la files from Debian and a possible solution to the libtool shared libs problem

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Kurt,

* Kurt Roeckx wrote on Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 10:31:39PM CEST:
> 
> I've mailed about this issue before.  What I think needs to
> happen, and have proposed before, is:
> - The .la file should only contain the libraries the current
>   library links to

That will make it impossible to support static linking against libraries
which do not themselves provide .la files.  We cannot do this upstream.

> - Libtool should recursively read all the .la files in
>   the .la file.

Again, this implies that all libraries of interest provide .la files.
But Debian itself contributes to making that assumption be false.

Besides, another issue that we currently have, and whose effect would be
worsened by this change, is that deplib searches in staging directories
need to take the staging prefix into account.

> With that change only one .la file would need to be updated.

Well, for that you do not need that the .la file only contains the
libraries the current library links to.  What you need is the following.

Assuming there is a deplibs and a private_deplibs (for static linking).
Then, when your dependency walker is smart enough (and correct) to
recurse .la files, then you can omit references to .la files which you
only link against indirectly.  However, references to indirect
non-libtool deplibs still need to be added to private_deplibs.

Cheers,
Ralf