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

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2017-06-01 18:46:56 +0200, Thomas Jahns wrote:
> On 06/01/2017 11:09 AM, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > 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...).

MacOS has something equivalent (DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH).

> > 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.

This is not the case in general: libraries are installed by the user
in $HOME/lib, but binaries can be anywhere under the $HOME directory.

> > > 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.

First, autotools projects are not always used. If a user writes a
small C program that uses some library installed in $HOME/lib, he
will just invoke the compiler (a Makefile isn't even necessary in
simple cases).

Second, even if libtool is used, how does it know where to search
the library?

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <address@hidden> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)