Re: libgmp: link to the correct shared library

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Paul,

> > Also, adding -Wl,-rpath=/PREFIX64/lib to LDFLAGS will have ill consequences
> > when the package contains shared libraries and uses libtool to create them. 
> > See
> > <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2020-05/msg00102.html>.
> 
> That's OK too, since Emacs and coreutils don't use libtool to create packages.

GNU poke is likely to use GMP soon. When it does that, it will of course use
the module 'libgmp'. And this package happens to use libtool.

> Coreutils 'expr' already  links to GMP anyway. :-)

:-)

> > Do you think there is something to add to the documentation
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/Searching-for-Libraries.html
> >  ?
> 
> I am hoping that I do not have to read that documentation; I just want to 
> keep 
> building Coreutils the way it's been built for quite some time. ... I merely 
> want to be able to use GMP without worrying about libtool.

You can. For uses of system-wide installed GMP, nothing changes. For users who
built GMP on their own, there is the configure option --with-libgmp-prefix. If
there is a problem with it, you can redirect the reports to bug-gnulib or me.

You probably don't want to deal with libtool because of its deep platform
dependencies? 'havelib' also has some platform dependencies, but
  - much less of them,
  - they are contained in a single file, 'build-aux/config.rpath',
  - this file does not need updates more frequently than once in 5 years.

Bruno