libtool 1.4.2 and MinGW

[Howard Chu]

I've browsed the list archives and the Changelogs but haven't seen anything
that directly addresses these issues. I haven't checked the current CVS yet,
just looked at 1.4.2 and 1.4d...

When linking a DLL, the script tries to identify whether the other
dependencies
are static or dynamic objects. However, it only uses the "file" command,
which only detects dynamic object files. It doesn't notice if an archive
file happens to just be an import library for some other DLL. It treats this
as a case of trying to link a static library into a shared object, and
refuses to create the DLL.

When linking with a ".la" convenience library, the script always creates a
local copy of the imports from the referenced DLL. This is a waste of time
and space, since the script already created an import library when the DLL
in the convenience library was created. E.g., when libtool creates
libfoo.dll it also creates libfoo.dll.a. When I link against libfoo.la, why
does it then try to create and link against .libs/libimp-libfoo.dll? It
should just look for and use libfoo.dll.a.

The second issue is just annoying, the first issue causes an otherwise
legitimate build process to fail.

  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.       Director, Highland Sun
  http://www.symas.com               http://highlandsun.com/hyc
  Symas: Premier OpenSource Development and Support