This is the mail archive of the gcc@gcc.gnu.org mailing list for the GCC project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: How to get top-level library installed in lib/gcc-lib/...?


>  In message <rzqhg1jvnya.fsf@djlvig.dl.ac.uk>you write:
>  > I don't understand why it is this way, though I haven't had time to
>  > look closely.  Why are libf2c and libstdc++ different?  [Answer
>  > presumably to await mail.gnu.org getting sorted out...]
>There have been discussions about moving libstdc++ into libsubdir,
>but no real decision was ever made.  There's pros and cons to moving
>it into libsubdir.
>
>Consider what happens if you move it into libsubdir and it's built
>as a shared library.
[...]
>Hmmm, right now we don't built libf2c as a shared library, presumably
>we might one day?!?  In which case we've got the same problem.

Right.  My specific expertise on these matters is near zero; my
generaly industry experience much, much higher.  (I've not only
designed and built shared, dynamic libraries using shared r/w memory,
I've persuaded an entire organization to dely a crucial release
several weeks to remove a clever hack that took advantage of dynamic
linking, much to the chagrin of the hackers there, because it
became clear to me how dangerous it was in the long run, and I was
able to convince others, including upper management.  It's experiences
like that that have taught me how unwise it is to make assumptions
about how "easy" it is to produce shared, dynamically-linked
libraries, without having *very* thorough, detailed knowledge of
all the issues.  And these days I don't have that knowledge.)

So my feeling is that libf2c is simply not to be advertised as "ready"
for being distributed as a shared library.  I don't mind if people
make it one on their own -- no reason to make that harder -- but
I have suspicions that its interface is simply not "ready for prime
time", and as such I'd much rather it live in libsubdir and thus
not be naturally prepared for sharing as, ideally, it will be someday
(perhaps not until it's libg77, instead of libf2c/libg2c).

Like so many things that are annoying and perhaps easily fixed in g77,
I just don't yet have the time to invest in determining how robust
the "easy" fixes are for myself, nor the confidence to just blindly
accept them and foist them on others.  But I don't have a problem
with various patches and recipes for these things being made available
as such, so people know what they're dealing with.

So I imagine some installations will choose to meta-install egcs/g77
by running a script that copies (or moves) libg2c.a (and g2c.h) out
of libsubdir into libdir, and perhaps automatically make it into a
shared library at the same time (with suitable modifications to the
build process as appropriate).

In that case, They Know What They're Doing, and at least we've done
some "helping" by renaming the library at the same time we relocated
it, so mysterious conflicts are less likely.

        tq vm, (burley)


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]