Re: binutils 2.28 breaking libtool for test programs when -no-install is used

[Thomas Jahns]

On 06/01/2017 11:09 AM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2017-06-01 09:56:29 +0200, Thomas Jahns wrote:
> > GCC doesn't generate binaries or shared libraries, ld does. Passing
> >
> > -Wl,-rpath,/path/to/dependency/lib
>
> But this is not automatic. When typing
>
>   $CC program.c -o program -lmpfr -lgmp
>
> (where $CC can be gcc, tcc or icc, for instance), things should just
> work, i.e. the correct options should be passed to ld *by default*.

That would be nice, on AIX directories passed with -L are also added to the 
run-time library search path. But since some people don't want that either for 
places that only contain static archives, -L and -Wl,-rpath both need to be 
accounted for by the person/automaton invoking the link editor.

> Perhaps defining the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable instead of
> LD_LIBRARY_PATH could be a workaround, but gold does not support
> it, so that this cannot be a general solution.

Linking is very platform- and tool-dependant. LD_LIBRARY_PATH is also not 
general (read what it does on BSD or Solaris to find out more, it does not do 
anything on e.g. AIX, macOS, Windows...).

> Moreover, what path should be given when the library is on NFS, where
> the mount point (e.g. $HOME directory) depends on the machine?

That's just an accident waiting to happen and shows more about bad system 
management than tooling. But as I wrote, library paths that are invariant 
relative to the binary can still work.

> Note that it is important that several machines can be used at the
> same time, e.g. for parallel computing on a network of machines.

I don't know of any site with such a setup, seems like to little thought went 
into planning somewhere.

> > will do just what's needed (for most people on this list libtool
> > does so for them).
>
> libtool is used to compile libraries, but in general, the user does
> not use it to build an executable.

On the contrary, in autotools projects, libtool is automatically used for 
linking both, libraries and executables.

Thomas

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